


My Kingdom For A Horse

by tiger_moran



Series: Precursor [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Smut, Arguing, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Brief references to kink, Brief references to rape, Christmas, Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Dominance, Don't copy to another site, Family Gatherings, Fluff, Horses, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Oriented Aroace, Past Abuse, Referenced Animal Abuse, Referenced Biphobia, Referenced past character death, Referenced past child abuse, Referenced past infant death, Referenced past suicide, Referenced/implied past sexual assault of another character, References to Homophobia, Rimming, Siblings, Sleeping Together, Some angst, Switching, Trust, Victorian Homophobia, christmas gifts, horse riding, post-coital conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: A mistreated horse and a Christmas spent at the house of Moriarty's brother bring to the surface things about Moran and Moriarty's pasts and families they had long suppressed or denied, but ultimately bring the two even closer together.
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty
Series: Precursor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286192
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

Professor Moriarty is rapidly learning that when Moran has no work to do and if he is not to be found around the house then there is a strong chance that he can be located at the nearby mews where the Professor's carriage horses are kept. The place seems to have an irresistible draw for him, despite the fact that it stinks of, well, _horse_.

At first the men there were wary and suspicious of the Colonel, thinking that him turning up there regularly must mean he was checking up on them and that he didn't trust them to take care of the horses. But Moran's demeanour and natural charm seems to have won them round. He has told them stories of his time in India and Afghanistan, of the horses he had there. He misses the animals, they realise. He has actually earned their respect also for the way he handles even the most difficult and highly strung of horses and for the fact he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

Moriarty doesn't really mind anyway even if Moran does come back home sometimes smelling like a stable-yard. It seems to make the Colonel happy. Increasingly the Professor is finding himself becoming more tolerant of things that would once have irritated him. Besides, Moran does have the good grace to wash himself before getting too close to Moriarty.

The Professor's carriage horses are two black animals, named officially Philolaus and Archytas, though they seem to have been rechristened by everyone but the Professor himself as Philo and Archie. Half-brothers who were shipped over from Bohemia as youngsters, they are beautifully matched in colour, height and build, but nonetheless they are probably not the type of animals that many admirers of horses would deem desirable. Though elegant enough in their movements, they are both rather coarse in build, with heavy heads with a ram-like profile. Moran, regarding them sometimes, thinks of ancient war-horses, of Bucephalus. Perhaps that is why the Professor chose them, although beyond paying handsomely to ensure they are well cared for and to make sure his carriage is always on hand when he requires it, he seems to have very little interest in the horses himself. It is always Moran to whom the creatures whicker with recognition; largely they ignore Moriarty entirely, and this has never troubled him. Still, he has noticed Moran's affection for them.

"Why don't you get a riding horse?” he asks one day over breakfast. “You clearly like being around horses.” He suspects that Moran is probably a very skilful rider, although he has yet to actually see Moran sitting on a horse.

But Moran only pulls a wry face in response. “What, and do laps around Hyde Park while people gawk at me? Join them all gallivanting down Rotten Row?”

“Surely you must want to ride?”

“Not here. We have horses in London because we must but it's no place for 'em really.” Which is true enough – with all the noise and the bustle and the buildings crowded together it is hardly the ideal environment for a flighty prey animal – but really it is not only that but the company he would encounter in places such as Hyde Park that puts him off the notion. People go there still not merely to ride but to be _seen_ , to show off their expensive outfits and even more expensive horses; to flaunt themselves and their wealth, and to scrutinise others of course. It all seems so unbearably shallow.

“Out in the country then,” Moriarty suggests. “You could keep one at Yew Lodge for when we go out there. Perhaps we could make that a more regular thing, go out there at the weekends sometimes.”

Moran gives him a slightly surprised look. Perhaps he was expecting the Professor to mock him for regarding horses as anything more than a commodity, for perceiving them as something with feelings. Or perhaps it is that Moriarty referred to 'we' and speaks of trips out of the countryside, to the Professor's country house, for the two of them. It still gives Moran a little pang of pleasure when the Professor says 'we' or 'us', and an even greater feeling of warmth and happiness when Moriarty speaks of some plans for the two of them together. Moriarty had lived quite happily alone for so many years and yet he seems to have slipped quite smoothly into regarding Moran as his permanent companion, changing and adapting his plans to include Moran more and more.

“Maybe,” Moran says. A seemingly non-committal response, but his smile as he drops his gaze downwards shows Moriarty how intrigued and even pleased he is about the idea.


	2. Chapter 2

Late autumn, out in the countryside. The seasons here are different to the city. It is not that in London they are not noticeable – there the weather still changes, it grows colder, the nights grow longer and the days shorter, but in the city with all the buildings, the paved streets, the smog and the dirt and the gaslight they make autumn a different thing to autumn out here. Only in the parks in London can one get anything close to a true sense of the shift of the seasons, as the leaves on the trees turn to red and gold. Here though there are more trees, hedgerows, fields; there are flocks of birds; much more wildlife. The air is cleaner too; it does not taste so much of smoke or stink like it does down near the docks. There is a definite bite to the wind as they step out of the carriage and walk towards the house.

Yew Lodge seemed a far more impersonal space to Moran when he first came here. Moriarty used the place only rarely. He kept a few personal possessions here but it was not a home in any real sense. Still now it is hardly that, when much of the time only a meagre staff reside here, but with more regular visits here since then the place has at least acquired a few more decorative touches since that first time Moran stayed here. There are a few more ornaments, more books on the shelves in the drawing room, more plants in pots. There is also now a bedroom which Moran shares with the Professor, instead of being given his own room. Standing in that room, Moran looks out across the garden at the field where a couple of horses still pick at the increasingly sparse grass.

“I have made arrangements for you to have the loan of a horse while we are here,” Moriarty had told him on the journey here, surprising Moran, who had assumed the Professor had forgotten about their discussion of horses. Besides, Moran is usually the one who makes any arrangements. As well as acting as Moriarty's chief assassin he also runs many errands for him, some of which are vital to the functioning of Moriarty's criminal empire but many of which are more trivial, such as fetching the Professor's clothes from the tailor's or purchasing tickets for him.

“Thought you said we'd only be here on business?” he had remarked, to which Moriarty had smiled enigmatically and replied, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, my dear Moran.”

Moran had seen the borrowed horse briefly shortly after they arrived, a dappled grey mare, but she is stabled currently and not visible from the house. Still it seems strange to him that the Professor would arrange that for him, but it's a good kind of strange and it gives him a warm feeling inside to think about it.

After supper a meeting takes place with a mysterious man who insists on wearing a ridiculous mask throughout to (so he believes anyway) conceal his identity, although Moriarty whispers the man's name in Moran's ear mid-meeting. His business with the Professor requires a degree of privacy that is far more difficult to achieve back in London and as they casually talk of a series of thefts which this man requires Moriarty to arrange, Moran is made further aware of how out here in the country things are different to the city. In London they still have their privacy, their house together, their spaces where they may be as intimate as they wish with each other, but always there there is a sense of all those people around them – people going by outside, people on the other side of the walls in so many buildings. They have always been careful but there is a sometimes oppressive sense there of being surrounded, of being watched. Here they have more space and a far greater feeling of being able to do whatever they wish.

It is very late by the time the client departs and the pair retire to bed shortly after this, both falling into a deep sleep soon after climbing into bed. Despite having privacy, tonight neither cares about anything other than sleeping.

However, when they awaken rather late the next morning, Moran definitely seems to be a little... _frisky_. Moriarty is hardly surprised by this. The Colonel gets that way in the morning often anyway, and now with them being at their country house he is probably even more likely to want them to be physically intimate. He does not push of course, but as he lies beside Moriarty, walking his fingers down the Professor's thigh and grinning at him, Moriarty knows exactly what Moran wants.

“We could...”

“No.” Moriarty closes his eyes. This is a very good pillow, he thinks, more comfortable than the one he has back at their Conduit Street house. He feels no particular inclination to move much at present. Moran's playful attempts at coaxing him into sex are not entirely unwelcome to him but he is not in the mood to exert himself too much yet.

“I could use my mouth on you then.” Moran lies with his head resting on Moriarty's thigh, like a dog. “If you don't want to move much.”

Moriarty opens his eyes. “You _could_.”

“That mean I can then?” Moran asks, always needing confirmation, always needing to be sure.

“You may.”

And so Moran takes Moriarty's length in his mouth and sucks him skilfully, deeply, in a way that soon has the Professor gripping the headboard tightly and unable to quite keep back more than one groan of pleasure. Moriarty finishes first, spilling down Moran's throat, a testimony to the Colonel's skill, but Moran comes not far behind, always being so aroused by the Professor's reactions.

Moriarty looks down at Moran's head between his legs - Moran with his tousled hair of a shade which _might_ just about be described as dark blonde, though it looks a tad lighter now in colour than when he has it slicked back with oil, and the slight freckles across his nose and cheekbones. His eyes still look darker though, pupils wide, when he looks up at the Professor. He still rests his cheek against Moriarty's thigh, smiling. He appears as contented as a cat lying in a sunbeam, and Moriarty watches him for a moment and thinks, with a queer pang in his chest and an odd lump in his throat, what strange power this is, power he could never have imagined he could have possessed, to have managed to make someone adore him so; to have gained his utter devotion.

Strangely, just for a second or two, seeing Moran in this position between his own thighs also makes Moriarty think of horses, imagining Moran with one of the animals between his legs, though in an entirely different manner of course. The thought dissipates a moment later however. He looks at Moran's flushed face, at his moistened lips, at his slightly sleepy grin as he glances up at the Professor, and wonders again why Moran seems to get so much pleasure from this act, pleasure enough that he always barely seems to even need to touch himself in order to finish.

“Does it bother you, that I cannot....” Moriarty pauses, frowning slightly. It is not the topic he intends to speak on that makes him hesitate. Rather, it always pains him to admit that he cannot do something, for to admit that one _cannot_ do something suggests some kind of weakness of character in oneself, a vulnerability. For a man such as Moriarty, to show vulnerability, it is anathema. Far better to assert that one _will not_ do something, as if it is entirely a choice. And yet he said _cannot_ first to Moran, almost instinctively. “That I will not.... pleasure you in this way?” he amends at last.

Moran sits up, stretches, still catlike, possessing an odd grace in the manner in which he rolls his shoulders, working out the stiffness of his previous position between the Professor's thighs. “Course not.” His voice, though rather rough anyway, sounds a little more hoarse than usual. He smiles, a smile that touches his blue eyes, and though there are creases at the corners of his eyes the Professor thinks how young Moran looks, how boyish. Strangely he seems younger now than when he first entered into Moriarty's employment, and far less like a man carrying some huge burden upon his shoulders.

“Does it not seem unfair to you?” Moriarty asks.

Moran shrugs idly. “You give me pleasure in other ways. I ain't some mathematical genius like you, but I reckon it balances out all right in the end.” He moves up the bed to sit beside the Professor. “Anyway.” He licks his lips unconsciously, pausing. He drops his gaze away when he speaks next, as if what he wishes to say is intense enough without making eye contact as well. “Anyway, Professor, I don't want you doin' things you don't enjoy.” Because he knows for sure now that the Professor does not much enjoy performing that particular act. Not all of it bothers him and in fact it turns out that Moriarty does not mind using his mouth upon Moran a little, occasionally, but rather more as a hint of things to come, not as the main event. To take the matter to its conclusion, so to speak, is something he finds far too distasteful – literally, Moran supposes – and also he is a man who is far too well-mannered to spit. “And I don't want you to feel like... you're agreeing to certain things simply to please me.” Because, hell, it's difficult enough at times for Moran to assuage that nagging doubt within him that the Professor doesn't really want to lie with him; that he is only doing so because he believes he must in order to hold Moran's interest in him. Even though he knows, of course he does, that the Professor gets pleasure from the sex; that there are many acts which he seems to very thoroughly enjoy. One's fears are not always rational however.

“Why not?” Moriarty queries.

“Cos I ain't a rapist!” Moran punctuates this with a laugh, but there is no real humour in the sound, because the topic is not a joke to him; it never could be.

Moriarty narrows his eyes slightly, less at Moran's words and more at the sudden sharpness of his tone. “If I had agreed to do it though, then it would not be an act of rape, surely.”

Now it is Moran's eyes which narrow, and he looks at the Professor and yet almost seems to be looking past him. There is a darkness in his expression, a shadow which has fallen across him, hardening his expression and making his freckled shoulders slump slightly, which saddens the Professor somewhat, for he had not intended to spoil the moment between them, when Moran seemed happy and relaxed.

“My mother agreed to much,” Moran says. “Don't mean she actually _consented_ though.” He tugs sharply at a loose thread on the coverlet, fury in the small but destructive gesture, until Moriarty reaches down and takes Moran's hand in his and draws it to his lips, kissing his knuckles very gently.

Moran's words hint at something huge, something immense, a small portion perhaps of that burden the Colonel carried or indeed still carries, to some extent, upon his shoulders. And Moriarty is not oblivious to how significant his words are, even this smallest of revelations. Looking at him he wonders, not for the first time, what horrors his lover has witnessed in his life, in the times before Moriarty claimed him; when he was a soldier; when he was a child before that. Even to the Professor, Moran will not speak of certain matters. Some things can be inferred from the data Moriarty has gleaned through various sources, but other things remain hidden, pushed down into some strange dark dungeon in the Colonel's memory, inaccessible perhaps even to him save for in his nightmares.

Moran loved his mother fiercely – still does, though she is long laid in her grave – Moriarty is sure of that. But he rarely ever speaks of her. Most of his memories of her are, it seems, too painful to bring to the surface, and thus Moriarty dare not ask more about her, dare not push too hard too soon. She died when Moran was still a boy; Moriarty knows little more than that. A novel thing, for him to be so cautious, so reticent, so afraid, even. Moriarty appreciates novelty in his life; likes that even at his age he has found someone who can provide him with new sensations, new feelings, even new emotions he has never before experienced. But not every new experience is a welcome one. Sometimes they are only an unwelcome reminder of his own weaknesses, such as the fact that really he has no idea how to look after Moran and how best to handle him. He knows only that Moran's father's solution to handling him was all wrong; that he himself would never treat even an animal the way Augustus Moran treated Sebastian.

Moriarty has no desire to ever be a father and, mercifully, probably very little chance of that ever happening anyway, for he does not have Moran's history or inclinations when it comes to acts of intimacy with others. He does not especially like children even – he has taught the older ones, but younger children, babies, they are not for him and he cannot relate to them. So for him to realise that in taking the younger Moran on as his lover and companion, though of course Moran is far from being a child, that still an almost paternal element in his nature has been brought out, it is a rather strange feeling, and one that has left him feeling rather adrift. He wants to care for Moran, to make him happy, to make him feel safe and secure, to nurture his talents also. He certainly does not wish to become Moran's replacement father – they are lovers after all, and they do many things together which no decent father would wish to engage in with his own child – but still there is within the Professor some desire now to treat Moran in a far better way than Augustus ever treated him. Still he feels almost that he has put himself in direct competition with Augustus Moran for Sebastian's, well, one might call it his _soul_.

Moran lets out a long, shaky breath, before leaning against the Professor's side.

“When I agree to things with you,” Moriarty says slowly, softly, “then it is because I feel comfortable with you, and safe.” He slides his arm around Moran's side. The Colonel has put on a little weight since they were first physically intimate, he notes; there is a little more flesh on him and he feels less like a man made entirely of bones and skin and sharp angles. It makes lying beside him even more pleasant, even when Moran is stark naked.

“I still don't want you doing things you don't get pleasure from, and when you don't get pleasure from... _that_ , then I don't want that from you.” Moran rests his face against Moriarty's neck. “Anyway...” When he looks up at Moriarty again some of the darkness has gone from his expression; he seems more amused now. “I _like_ doing that to you. With you, I prefer to give, and if you prefer to receive, then that works out all right, don't it?”

“Yes.” Moriarty smiles. “I suppose it does.”

A reminder here of how sometimes being different in certain matters works out just as well as being alike in others.

“Will you come for a ride with me this morning?” Moran asks.

“We have work to do,” Moriarty reminds him. Coming out to the country house has allowed them to spend a little more private time together than usual, but it was not meant to be entirely just a holiday.

“It can keep an hour or two.” Moran toys idly with the hem of Moriarty's nightshirt.

“We're already late getting up,” the Professor points out. He suspects though he is fighting a losing battle here. Moran does not push him on any matter, but he can still be extremely persuasive at times.

“We wouldn't need to be out for long,” Moran says. “Please, Professor?”

Moriarty though hardly considers himself to be a horseman. Horses can be useful to him and he prides himself on ensuring his own horses are well cared for and smartly turned out and it is not as if he is even a particularly terrible rider. Given a quiet enough mount he is perfectly capable on horseback. He would simply rather be standing on his own two feet than mounted on the back of one of the big, hairy, malodorous creatures.

But Moran has a longing to be close to horses again in a way he can never truly sate in London, and for him combining being close to the animals with being close to the Professor is probably a state approaching paradise. Today, Moriarty cannot quite bring himself to disappoint his companion.

“All right,” he says. “After breakfast.”


	3. Chapter 3

Washed, dressed and with breakfast consumed, Moriarty strolls down to the stables in search of Moran, who – being infinitely more enthusiastic about this than the Professor – has gone on ahead to prepare his horse himself. Moriarty's own mount is to be the rather nondescript bay cob, Charlie, which is also used to pull the trap - what people might call a useful animal rather than an impressive one. However the horse is well fed and his somewhat shaggy brown coat has been brushed and his tack carefully polished by the groom. Anyway, looking over at Moran's mount for today, Moriarty does not particularly regret the ordinariness of Charlie.

The grey horse, Cobweb, is lean and tall, sturdy enough to carry a grown man, but with refined, almost delicate, features. Beautifully dappled like a child's rocking horse, she is an exquisite creature – even the Professor can recognise that – but highly strung. When she had been brought to their stables by a groom she had pranced and snorted and pawed the ground. That experienced horseman had seemed to have immense difficulty controlling her. Even with Moran on board she looks as if she could explode into action at any moment, but Moran rides out her snorting and shying and side-stepping quietly, sitting relaxed in the saddle with a loose rein, seeming completely unconcerned by her behaviour.

Their ride takes them up a gentle slope, along the top of the hill. Watching Moran astride the grey, Moriarty is struck once again by the disparity between certain aspects of Moran's nature. Moran has something predatory about him, and he is physically strong. He may be lean but Moriarty has felt the power in Moran's body plenty of times and he suspects if Moran put his mind to it, he could easily overpower the Professor. Yet he is very calm and so very still. Perhaps it comes from his hunter's nature, when he has spent hours sometimes observing his prey, watching, waiting for the perfect moment, learning to understand his prey all the while. He has a patience some would not expect from him, and the dappled grey mare responds to this. She is still clearly a high-spirited animal but with Moran she is calmer, almost docile, yet the Professor sees no evidence of Moran using any force upon her. He still sits there in the saddle, barely seeming to move at all, perfectly in tune with his horse and directing her using the subtlest signals.

Charlie meanwhile does rather struggle to keep up with Cobweb. When he trots his black legs move with short, choppy strides which are not especially comfortable, and when he canters he still seems to be moving at about half the speed of Moran's horse, but the Colonel does keep Cobweb in check so that she does not race ahead. She has settled well, ceasing her head tossing and mock-shying at every windblown leaf or bird or waving stalk of grass as she did when she was brought to their stables.

“Want to gallop?” Moran asks when they reach the long stretch behind the far meadow, bringing Cobweb to a halt and turning her on the spot to regard the Professor.

“And get left behind entirely? No thank you,” Moriarty replies.

“Charlie can go if you give him his head,” Moran points out. “Or are you scared, hmm?” he teases, grinning wickedly.

“Of course not,” Moriarty scoffs, and kicks Charlie into a canter, quickly turning it into a gallop. For a moment he is even out in front, but Cobweb soon streaks past him and Charlie is left to lumber gamely after the mare. It is not exactly comfortable and Moriarty does rattle around in the saddle rather a lot, but the little bay is a valiant creature and seems determined not to be entirely left behind. The Professor surreptitiously grabs a handful of the horse's black mane to steady himself and lets him go.

Charlie however slows noticeably well before they reach the far end of the stretch of grass. Though not particularly overweight he is still nowhere near as fit as Cobweb and the Professor would not like to push the horse until he collapses, so he lets him slow, trotting a few paces before he drops to a walk. Actually it is a great relief to him to slow down, but Moriarty would prefer to let Moran think he has slowed only to spare Charlie.

Cobweb continues on in a gallop, before Moran lightly brings her round to canter back to Moriarty's side. “You all right?” he asks.

“Perfectly all right.” Though Moriarty is also rather out of breath.

Moran laughs at this contrast between the Professor's words and his breathlessness. “Come on,” he says. “We'll take it more slowly on the way back.”

They walk back to the stables beneath a silver-grey sky. Winter is most definitely coming and the leaves, turned to copper, are blowing off the trees. Cobweb still spooks and shies at one or two of them but seems more settled by now. Charlie pays them no attention at all, more concerned with getting home and returning to his eating.

Once back at the stables Moriarty is quite happy to let their groom and occasional driver, Barnett, take Charlie away and sort him out. The bay, with his stout build and thicker coat, still spends much of his time out in the field, but Cobweb, as both a borrowed horse and a more finely built one, must remain stabled, and Moran insists on taking care of her himself. Moriarty stands to the side of her loose-box, watching Moran wipe the sweat-marks from her coat after he has unsaddled her.

“They look like stars,” he remarks, stepping towards the mare, tracing the shape of one of her dapples lightly with his fingertips. Cobweb turns her head slightly and rolls an eye back at him but does no more than this, turning her attention back to nosing at her manger after ascertaining that the Professor is going to do no more than touch her side. “A galaxy of them.”

Moran grins. “That sounds a little romantic for you, Professor.”

“Just an observation.” As Moran glances back at him, Moriarty smiles.

“So how'd you like your ride?” Moran asks after a pause.

“I'll probably be sore for days after that.”

“Now you know how I feel when you've given me a good seeing to,” Moran says, and throws another wicked grin back at the Professor, winking at him as he does so.

“Really, Moran,” Moriarty murmurs, although he is still smiling. “Of course, while the ride was pleasant enough, I can think of something else I'd much rather have between my legs than that animal.” Proving that Moran is not the only one who can make suggestive remarks.

“Are you proposing we do that twice in one day?” Moran laughs, although his laughter dies away when Moriarty steps behind him, putting a hand against Moran's back.

“It is a possibility, certainly,” Moriarty says. “Don't let me interrupt your work, pet.”

“As if I can concentrate on anything when you touch me,” Moran says.

“And I thought you were a professional, Sebastian,” Moriarty teases. “Perfectly capable of operating under the most trying circumstances.”

“Aye, well there's one hell of a difference between being on a battlefield with bullets flying around you, or up in a tree during a storm, and you puttin' your hands on me,” Moran says softly.

“This is so distracting, is it?” Moriarty asks. He is pressed to Moran's back now, his hand resting against Moran's hip.

Moran's hand, holding the cloth, stills against Cobweb's side.

Moriarty leans over and presses the lightest of kisses to the back of Moran's neck, feeling the Colonel shiver beneath him, before he draws back. Moran remains standing there, hand resting against the grey mare's side but still unmoving, as if he cannot quite trust himself to turn around and look back at the Professor, because he knows that if he does he will want to kiss him on the mouth and touch him, and far more. He knows though that this is not the place for that and besides, Moriarty simply may not want to do anything more. Sometimes the Professor's words are precisely that, no matter how suggestive he can be – just words; a sort of playful flirtation, not something he intends to actually do any time soon, and Moran doesn't mind that. He's used to it by now – to the Professor having a kind of disconnect between words and actions.

Moran takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, before he returns to wiping the horse down. Moriarty, with a smile playing over his lips still, sits down on a bale of hay at the side of the stable.

“You seem more at peace, around horses,” he remarks at length, leaning forward, his elbows resting upon his knees as he steeples his fingers together beneath his chin.

At last Moran, now with a brush in his hand, does glance back at the Professor again. “You can't get the best out of a horse if you ain't at peace with it,” he says. Turning back, he looks into Cobweb's liquid-dark eye, remembering his horses back in India with a pang in his chest that is almost painful.

Horses are dangerous, he knows that. They are big and have teeth and hooves and, since they are prey animals, anything and everything from a bird to the tiniest scrap of paper blowing in the wind can seem to set some of them off. He has escaped with no more than a few bruises from all of his encounters with horses himself, but he has seen plenty of people fall from their mounts, breaking collarbones and arms and legs and necks, even, in the process. He has seen people kicked and trampled on and bitten by horses. Moran though is perhaps not drawn to anything unless there is at least a hint of danger about it, and there is also the thrill of being on the back of a galloping horse, perhaps the closest he can get to flying. Or there is the excitement of a different kind when a difficult or barely tamed horse trusts him enough to let him touch it. And there is the gentleness that many horses can demonstrate - a huge cart horse letting a child lead it, a flighty racehorse letting the stable-yard cat sleep curled on its back, or a big hunter blowing softly down the neck of a little boy sitting hunched up in the straw, brushing its velvety muzzle against his tear-stained cheek.

“It's not just them though.” Moriarty tilts his head very slightly to one side, considering Moran thoroughly. “It's all of this.” Gesturing vaguely around the loose box, meaning the buildings themselves, but also simply the atmosphere. There is a smell of the animals themselves but also the sweetish scent of hay, the tang of the leather tack and harness, and the sounds, the occasional whicker or snort or whinny, the jingle of harness, the muffled stamping of hooves on the straw bedding, or louder hoof-beats when a horse is walked across the cobbled yard.

“I used to...” Moran looks down and picks distractedly at the bristles of the brush, tugging out a few loose white hairs and letting them flutter down into the straw. “When I was a boy I used to... go out to the stables sometimes, when my father was...” He laughs suddenly, too sharply, and looks up at Moriarty again. “When he was on the rampage, I s'pose. Of course he used to beat them too, sometimes, the horses, but then... sometimes... it was safer there.”

“Moran,” Moriarty says softly, and then realises he has no idea what else to say. What is one meant to say to such revelations? He has long known that Augustus Moran is a beast of a man but Moran is understandably reluctant to speak of such things even to the Professor.

“You need not say anything.” Moran smiles at him, awkwardly, almost shyly. “I don't need pitying.”

Does then the expression on Moriarty's face at this moment look like pity, he wonders? He was certainly not aiming for it to appear so. “I do not pity you,” he says. “I am just... appalled by what that man did to you, and to your mother; to dumb animals even.” Though appalled does not really even begin to cover the sense of rage Moriarty feels at the thought of anyone mistreating his Sebastian.

Moran shrugs idly before turning back to the horse, to continue brushing her dappled coat. “It don't matter,” he says, almost through clenched teeth. He didn't mean to tell Moriarty so much but something about standing by Cobweb's side, feeling her warmth and bulk and solidity, her strength, it made him feel secure enough somehow to let something start to come out to the Professor – memories of things he had not consciously thought about in many years.

Not for the first time Moriarty thinks that Moran is more comfortable with animals than he is with people. The Colonel is self-confident and cocksure, charming when he needs to be, but also taciturn, prone to giving little away except to those precious few people he trusts deeply. An outsider too; a man who has never truly belonged anywhere before, abused and rejected by his father; mistrusted and ousted by his schoolmates; generally despised by the other army officers and, though generally respected by the lower ranking soldiers, they could never truly accept him as one of their own. Animals though do not make the same judgements that people do. They do not chide him for affecting a certain manner of speech or behaving in a certain way nor do they shun or censure him for experiencing certain forms of attraction. A dog or a domestic cat or a horse may or may not accept him but they will judge him on his own merits, not by some ridiculous standards of what is considered good or proper or legal behaviour. Even with the tigers and other large wild predators Moran once hunted, Moriarty suspects that Moran still felt far more of an affinity with those creatures than with most men.

“My boy, of course it matters.” Moriarty stands up again.

“Why?” Moran says, a touch more sharply than he had intended. “That's all in the past.”

“Not so long ago,” says Moriarty. Because Moran is haunted; even Moriarty, with his general inability to understand other people, can see that – he is haunted by the horrors of war, no doubt, but also by his repeated mistreatment by his own father, and his father's behaviour towards his mother also, and even towards his animals it seems.

Moriarty looks at the Colonel and wonders, how much does he truly know about this man? For that matter, how much does Moran truly know about him? Somehow these most mistrustful of men have come to gain each other's trust. They have come to share not only a house but also a bed and a great deal of their lives. They both know each other's true natures better than anyone else perhaps, but even so, much of their pasts, their histories, their innermost thoughts also are still an enigma to each other.

“Long enough,” Moran says. “Please, sir, don't. Don't drag all of it up any more.”

There are moments when Moran calls him that, _sir_ , when Moriarty feels that Moran regards himself as being way, way below the Professor; that it is less about respect and affection and more that Moran feels inferior to him. Surprisingly, this hurts – that Moran could think of himself in such a manner.

“Sebastian,” he says, and embraces Moran from behind again, more tightly now. For a second Moran tenses, unwittingly preparing himself to fight – less a reaction based on fear and more the instincts of a man who is a hunter, but one who empathises deeply with his prey.

But then Moran's hand grasping the brush drops to his side. He leans back against the Professor briefly, closing his eyes as he turns around in Moriarty's hold.

“Would you like to keep her?” Moriarty asks. He knows that he would buy this horse without a second thought about it if Moran wants her.

Moran shrugs. “She's a good horse, but perhaps a touch too lightweight for me. Anyway I prefer something that's a bit more of a challenge.”

“She seems rather challenging to me.”

“She's just a little spirited.”

“But not spirited enough?” Moriarty asks, and he seems amused by this.

"She's well trained, there's not a lot of raw material left for me to work with.” Moran shrugs, unable to explain it any better than that. He doesn't have the time to break in a horse from scratch, but he would like something less polished than Cobweb, a horse that truly feels like his own and not like someone else's borrowed hack.

“Well,” Moriarty says, withdrawing from Moran. “Perhaps your perfect horse is out there somewhere.”

Moran smiles. “Perhaps so.”


	4. Chapter 4

It is in late November when the letter arrives. Moran pays it little attention initially however, since it is addressed to the Professor. He only carries it in with the couple of other letters also for Moriarty and places all of them down on the breakfast table beside the Professor's place. Moriarty glances over them, picking the one letter out from the others. The envelope is of thick, good quality cream-coloured paper, and he recognises the handwriting upon it at once. After wiping his knife off on his napkin, he uses this to slit open the envelope before carefully removing the letter and propping it up against his teacup in order to read it whilst he steadily consumes his bacon, eggs and fried mushrooms.

“We have been invited to my brother's house for Christmas,” he announces at length.

“Jamie's?” Moran queries, stretching across to take a piece of toast from the silver rack. He is probably never going to get used to all three brothers having the same first name, with only the youngest of them habitually going by a diminutive.

“No. Colonel Moriarty's.”

“We?” Moran says, his eyes narrowing. He supposes Colonel James Moriarty inviting his brother makes a certain amount of sense, even if the Professor has previously told him he and his elder brother loathe each other. Why though Colonel Moriarty should also want him there, he cannot understand, unless Moran is expected perhaps to provide entertainment somehow; to be treated by Colonel Moriarty as some figure of ridicule perhaps to amuse his other guests.

“Yes, _we_.” Moriarty sets the letter down flat beside his now empty plate.

“Why'd he want us to go to his place?”

“He has recently completed the construction of his house, so no doubt it is to show off; to rub my nose in the fact that he is a decorated army man with the grand house while I am but a lowly tutor and you, my dear Moran, were driven out of the army in disgrace.”

“Well.” Moran spreads butter on his slice of toast. “Do you want to go?”

“Not especially, but I suppose it would be the polite thing to do. Jamie should be there too of course, and my mother.”

Moran pauses with the butter knife hovering over the toast. Somehow the idea of the Professor having a mother seems very strange indeed. Moran does not exactly regard him as a god of indistinct creation or as someone who somehow sprang fully formed into the world, but it is difficult to imagine him ever being a baby or a small child. The notion of meeting the woman who conceived and gave birth to him then is also strange.

“Must I go?”

“If I have to go then so do you.” Moriarty pours himself another cup of tea.

Moran resumes spreading the butter. “Don't you find the idea of introducing me to your family a bit... shameful?”

Moriarty's teaspoon hits the side of his cup with a clatter. “Why, Sebastian? Do you assume I am ashamed of you?” he enquires sharply. “I am _not_ ashamed of you. I am well aware that our intimate relationship must be kept clandestine in most circles but that is purely out of practicality; I am still not ashamed of that or of you.” In fact it is rare for the Professor to feel ashamed about anything. He cannot say he is incapable of experiencing a sense of shame, but there seem to be multiple aspects of his life and his nature that ordinary people would expect him to feel shame or guilt about, but he does not. It vexes him, that Moran could ever think that Moriarty is ashamed of _him_. “I would like you very much to meet my family.”

“Well what if they realise that we are... you know?” Moran takes a bite of his toast and chews it thoughtfully.

“My elder brother already despises me, it would only be one more thing to add to the list of reasons why he does. No doubt he already suspects I am an _invert_ anyway. I believe my mother couldn't care less and likely will not even remember within a few days anyway, and Jamie is... hardly the sort to take offence over such matters.”

“So, we're going then?”

“Yes, we are going.”

“All right.” It isn't worth arguing about, Moran thinks. It is not as if he is going to get any other invitations to spend Christmas elsewhere anyway – his father would rather invite a rabid dog into his house than his own son, and really there is nobody else who would extend an invitation to Moran. He is interested in meeting Jamie at least anyway, and there is something about the act of being introduced to the family of the man he supposes he could conceivably call his _lover_ that seems symbolic. It is as if in some manner it makes their private relationship more official. That is both an interesting thought and a slightly alarming one, for he has never had such a relationship before, with this level of commitment. He isn't scared of that degree of commitment – in fact he is relishing it, and the sense of stability and security he now has with the Professor – but he is still not used to it. He spent so long being reckless, often careless, not usually entirely selfish but certainly not as selfless as he is now. It takes time to adjust, to get used to having a constant presence there. More than that though, perhaps he is afraid that he will mess everything up and ruin the intimate relationship he has with the Professor. There are times when he feels that that which exists between the two of them is both as beautiful and as fragile as butterfly wings, something lovely, richly coloured, but that may be damaged or destroyed as easily as the butterfly's wings may be torn or crushed to powder.

“I shall write back to my brother and inform him that we both accept his invitation then, shall I?” Moriarty asks, regarding Moran's somewhat distant but thoughtful expression.

“Hm?” Moran drags his attention fully back onto the Professor. “Oh, yes, right sir.”

“We shall travel there on the twenty-third of December, if that's all right with you?”

“Yes sir.” Moran even manages a smile here. “That's perfectly all right with me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Moriarty peers out of the carriage as it pulls into the driveway. His older brother's house looms up out of the oncoming evening, a large and rather ugly building. The place looks as if several different architects all of whom favour different styles came together, failed to communicate with each other and then all of them had a fight and none of them achieved what they truly wanted. Knowing his brother's antagonistic nature as he does, Moriarty suspects that may well actually be very close to what happened. Likely Colonel Moriarty managed to cause more than one architect to storm out in disgust before the design was properly finished.

“It's... big,” Moran remarks, leaning over to look up at the house too.

“I'm afraid my brother often mistakes size for quality,” Moriarty remarks, which makes Moran snigger slightly.

The carriage comes to a stop and Moriarty steps out first, followed by Moran. As they disembark, Colonel Moriarty comes down the front steps to meet them.

“Brother,” he says, he gaze falling on the Professor first. His eyes narrow slightly as they come to rest on Moran and it seems he can barely conceal his distaste. “And Colonel Moran. I am _delighted_ that you could both make it.”

“I'm sure you are,” the Professor remarks wryly. “I believe the two of you have met before.”

“Briefly, yes.” Colonel Moriarty holds out his hand to Moran, who shakes it. But all the while he has his cold grey eyes fixed on Moran's blue ones and there is such hatred in that look.

“I am surprised that you invited me,” Moran says.

“Well, I suspected that my brother would not attend if I did not extend the invitation to you also, and Mama so wanted him here.”

“I rather doubt she ever expressed such a desire,” the Professor remarks. “Moran, bring our bags, would you please.”

“Yes sir.” Moran turns back to the carriage to retrieve their luggage as the Professor steps alongside his brother. He is rather relieved to have some of Colonel Moriarty's scrutiny taken off him.

Colonel Moriarty is a tall man, almost the same height as the Professor, but bigger in general, far broader across the chest and shoulders. His hair is auburn, though far more shot through with grey than the Professor's. His face is ruddier and far more lined than his brother's and he has much more of a paunch and a double chin. Moran suspects the man probably has a little too much of a fondness for drink.

“Sir?” Colonel Moriarty remarks. “You have him well trained, Jimmy boy.”

“Call me that again and I will kill you,” the Professor says, smiling, but he probably means that. “Is Jamie here yet?”

“Yes, he's inside,” Colonel Moriarty replies. “Trying to get some sense out of Mama I think, but she's away with the fairies again, or perhaps that should be spirits.”

From which comment Moran, following behind them with the travelling bags, discerns that Colonel Moriarty is probably not the only family member who drinks heavily.

“So here you are in my humble abode, what!” Colonel Moriarty announces as he leads the way inside, his tone clearly implying he thinks of the place as anything but humble. They walk into a large hallway with a grand staircase leading up from it, with multiple corridors coming off it. In several recesses along the hallway stand various marble statues, all of barely clad women. “Dining room is down that way, end of the corridor. Drawing room through there. Sitting room here.” He gestures as they stroll through the hallway but leaves little time for them to take anything in. “I'll have someone show you your rooms first, then you can get settled in, refresh yourselves, then you can have a look around the rest of the house after that.”

“Where are Jamie and Mother?” the Professor asks.

“Oh, around, somewhere.” Colonel Moriarty seems not to care very much. “Jackson!” he bawls suddenly, and as if by magic a manservant appears, slinking out from what appeared to be another recess but is actually a doorway. “Ah, Jackson, show my brother and his _companion_ up to their bedrooms.”

“Yes sir.” Jackson gives him a slight bow before turning to glance at the Professor and Moran. “This way sirs,” he says, leading them towards the staircase. “May I take your luggage?”

“No, I'm fine with it, thank you,” Moran says.

“Suit yourself,” says Jackson, which seems a little flippant perhaps, but given this is his eldest brother's servant the Professor is hardly surprised.

Moran had half expected Colonel Moriarty to insist they be placed in opposite wings of the building out of spite, or perhaps for him to be shoved in the attics like a mere servant, but in fact their rooms are situated next to each other, both sited on the front of the house. After putting his luggage in his own room, Moran gives it a brief look around. There is not a great deal to see though. Unlike the rooms downstairs this one is rather sparsely furnished. No doubt he considers Moran not worthy of more impressive furnishings, or else perhaps he simply ran out of money for anything better.

Moran looks out of the window, across the expanse of gravel in front of the house, over at the clipped lawn and the tree-lined driveway. He might have been more interested in horses but apparently the stable-yard is behind the house and the expanse of grass out the front that seems to be ideal for grazing or for riding on is kept strictly as ornamental. Currently only a couple of birds are visible on it, pecking for worms.

Bored, he leaves his own room and goes and knocks on the door next to his.

“Enter,” calls the Professor. “Ah, Moran.” He does not look surprised to see Moran here already, because of course he isn't. The only surprising thing really is that Moran lasted as long as he did before coming knocking. “Your room comfortable, is it?”

Moran shrugs. “I s'pose.” Although the mattress on his bed does seem rather hard, but now testing the mattress on Moriarty's bed he finds that this one feels much the same. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks across at the Professor. “Sir, I...”

“Well?” Moriarty enquires, pausing in hanging up a pair of trousers in the small wardrobe. “What's the matter?”

“It's just... I didn't expect us to be given a room together, I didn't actually expect us to even be given ones side by side, but...”

Moriarty waits patiently for Moran to get to the point.

“It's just been a while since I slept alone,” Moran says at last. “And it's not that I can't, I just... I sleep better with you there. When I'm alone, that's when the nightmares get bad.”

“Well.” Moriarty closes the wardrobe door. “We cannot have that, now can we.” He strolls over towards the bed and presses his hand to Moran's face, cupping his jaw lightly. Tilting Moran's chin up, he looks into Moran's eyes. “I do not think my brother will like it much, but that is probably a good reason to do it anyway.” Although in truth his brother would probably like dealing with Moran's night terrors even less. “You may share my bed while we are here.” In fact he had been thinking much the same thing – not about nightmares but that he has grown accustomed by now to sharing a bed with Moran. The idea of sleeping alone, especially on a cold night, did not really appeal. Strange, after he had spent so many years sleeping by himself and being perfectly happy that way.

Moran turns his head and kisses Moriarty's hand. “Thank you, Professor,” he says.

Moriarty smiles. “Come then,” he says after a moment. “If you've finished investigating your room, let us go down and I will introduce you to the rest of the family.”

-

Downstairs, Colonel Moriarty seems to have vanished but they find Moriarty's mother and youngest brother by following the sound of a piano, poorly tuned and inexpertly played. Moriarty enters the drawing room with Moran following.

“Mother,” he says.

The tall, thin, grey-haired woman seated at the piano does not even look up, until the much younger man standing beside her touches her on the shoulder and stoops to say something to her. At last her somewhat unsteady gaze comes to rest on Moriarty.

“James, James, dearest James!” she cries, standing up so abruptly that she knocks over the piano stool. As she rushes forward to greet her middle son, the younger man carefully sets the stool upright again, whilst a small grey dog runs out apparently from underneath the piano and darts towards Moran, tail wagging furiously.

“Hello mother,” Moriarty says as she throws her arms around him. Moran, crouching down to pet the dog, can almost see the Professor recoil from the touch, but he tolerates it. She never used to behave this way; never during his childhood did either of his parents show much affection towards him. But widowhood, old age and likely an ever-increasing dependency on alcohol have changed her, and not only in that regard. In her younger days she would never have worn a green dress. He remembers his childhood home and everything in it, including his family, as sombre, almost colourless.

“You look so pale, James,” she says, withdrawing a degree at last. “Too much time spent indoors.”

His mother too looks rather wan, Moriarty notes, but perhaps this is deemed more acceptable on women. “Mother,” he says. “This is my companion, Colonel Sebastian Moran.” Moriarty grasps Moran's arm, pulling him upright again, and draws him closer, less a case of genuinely caring about introducing his lover to his mother; more thinking that if he must suffer through this gathering then Moran must share in his suffering.

“Delighted to meet you!” she cries and swiftly embraces Moran before he can escape. Her grip is astonishingly strong and he finds his breath nearly being crushed out of him. “A colonel, you say? You know James is a colonel too, aren't you James?” She looks at the Professor.

“Other James, Mama,” says the younger man.

“Oh?” She looks perplexed for a second or two, then seems to forget all about this. “Jamie, dear, where is my glass?”

“On the piano, Mama,” he replies.

Mrs Moriarty rushes off to reclaim her wine glass, leaving Moriarty and Moran to stand regarding the younger man while the dog runs around their feet.

“Jamie, Colonel Sebastian Moran. Moran, this is my youngest brother, Jamie.” Looking rather bored, Moriarty introduces the two.

“I am delighted to meet you,” Jamie says, stepping forward and clasping Moran's hand.

“Pleased to meet you too, er...” Moran wonders exactly how he is meant to address the brother of his lover.

“Please, call me Jamie. It's much easier.” Jamie smiles, genuinely warmly.

“Well then, Jamie.” Moran smiles back. Jamie seems very kind, he thinks. Looking at him next to the Professor, it would be difficult to tell that they are closely related for he cannot see many physical similarities between the pair. Jamie's hair is lighter in colour and he is much more slightly built than either of his brothers. “I am very pleased to meet you.”

“Oh, you've met my dog, Ollie.” Jamie stoops and scoops up the dog, a Bedlington Terrier, who wriggles in his arms as it tries to stretch across to lick Moran's face. “Do you like dogs?”

“Yes, very much.” Moran strokes Ollie's head again.

“I'm glad. James – Colonel James – doesn't like any dogs except foxhounds. He keeps telling me he's going to feed Ollie to them.” He sets Ollie down on the floor again and the little dog dashes off again. “When James said that the Professor here was bringing a friend along, I was thrilled. I have always worried that he must be lonely.” Jamie pats his brother rather over-enthusiastically on the shoulder.

“I was never lonely,” the Professor says pointedly.

“Well that did not stop me from worrying that you were.”

“Well now you need not worry about me again.” The Professor smiles sweetly at his younger brother.

“He is always like this,” Jamie confides to Moran. “He can never handle me showing concern for him. He thinks it is a weakness to care, or some such nonsense.”

“Could you kindly refrain from talking about me as if I am not right here,” the Professor says.

“Colonel Moran!” Mrs Moriarty suddenly cries, and rushes over to seize Moran by the arm. “Come, come, you must hear me play.”

“Please, Mama, not again,” Jamie says wearily, trailing after them as Moran is hauled over to the piano, but his mother is not to be dissuaded.

Whilst their mother is playing some composition that seems to be entirely of her own creation and only rarely seems to stray anywhere near a discernible or pleasing melody, Colonel Moriarty enters the room. Ollie's hackles immediately go up and he starts to bark, resulting in Jamie having to pick the dog up and carry him from the room.

“God, is she _still_ going?” Colonel Moriarty sneers in his mother's direction. “I have a mind to cut the damned piano strings.”

“Perhaps if you had the thing tuned it would be an improvement,” the Professor remarks, leaning back against the wall.

“Not the way Mama plays,” the Colonel says, and laughs. For the briefest moment he seems genuinely amused. “Your _friend_ looks about ready to hurl himself out of the window,” he says, with a scathing emphasis on _friend_.

Moran looks over at the Professor somewhat helplessly, too polite to simply walk away and so he is faced with the prospect of being stuck there listening to some never-ending piano piece until someone, whether it be him or Mrs Moriarty, drops down from exhaustion.

“Of course I know what you and he get up to,” the Colonel says, glancing at the Professor.

The Professor smirks slightly. “I doubt very much that you know even the half of it.”

“You and your bugger-boy,” the Colonel says, as if the Professor has not spoken. “Trying to bring the name of Moriarty into disrepute. I know all about you losing your previous job too of course. Were you buggering one of your students as well?”

The Professor glares at him with a look that could freeze a lake. “I have never laid a finger on any of my students.” And how typical of James, he thinks, that he cares only about the family name and reputation, not at all about the possibility of his brother taking advantage of his students.

“Well whatever you get up to with this... _person_ , be sure you do it in private,” the Colonel says.

The Professor gives him another withering look. “Dear me, and here I was planning to sodomise Sebastian in the middle of Leicester Square.”

Moran flushes. Colonel Moriarty only sniffs disdainfully.

-

Dinner is a rather understated affair the night before Christmas Eve. The food is good but the atmosphere is strained. Colonel Moriarty seems only to want to talk about his house and its contents, reeling off the prices he has paid for various things as if this is supposed to impress anyone.

“Good lord, James, don't be so vulgar!” Mrs Moriarty suddenly blurts out as her eldest son is recounting how much a particular statue cost him, which leaves Moran trying to conceal his amusement behind his napkin. Shortly after this she wanders off, pursued by the lady who is officially her maid but seems to be rather more of a nurse. Neither are seen again that night.

Come time to retire to bed, Moran initially goes to his own room but soon after Moriarty has climbed into bed, as expected Moran appears in his bedroom. In fact, even if Moran had not expressed a desire to sleep with him, Moriarty still would have expected Moran to show up in his room again. He always does. When they have gone on business trips to other cities, even to other countries a few times, Moran will usually have a hotel room booked for himself but he always turns up in the Professor's room sooner or later. Even during the daytime he seems incapable of staying in his own room, seeming to prefer being surrounded by the Professor's things even when the Professor is elsewhere. The strangest thing about this situation is not perhaps though that Moran, usually so misanthropic and solitary by nature, consistently does this but that Moriarty allows him to do so. The undeniable fact is that by this point he has got used to having Moran around; he finds Moran's presence comforting even.

“God it's fucking freezing in this house,” Moran says, slipping into bed beside the Professor.

“Yes, thank you, I had noticed.” Moriarty turns over a page of the book he is reading. A fire has been built up in the hearth, burning merrily, but the heat of it doesn't do a great deal to fill the large room.

“Your brother spent all that money on this place yet can't manage to heat it.”

“He does not consider warmth as impressive as tacking on entire extra wings and filling them with artwork of nude ladies.”

“Who's gonna be impressed if come morning he finds a load of frozen corpses in his bedrooms?”

Moriarty turns over another page of his book, wondering if Moran's comments about the cold are leading up to something.

Moran rolls over onto his stomach and looks up at Moriarty, grinning. “Of course, Professor, I know a way we could get ourselves nicely warmed up.”

Moriarty looks up from the book. _And there it is,_ he thinks. “Yes, you could bring over that extra blanket from the top of the wardrobe,” he says nonchalantly.

Moran sits up, thinks about this for a couple of seconds, then decides to fetch the blanket. He lays it over the bed before burrowing back under the covers where he again lies on his stomach looking up at the Professor.

“No,” Moriarty says, gaze resting on a page of his book again.

“You don't know what I was gonna ask.”

“Of course I do.” Moriarty doesn't always get it right with Moran, of course. He has made mistakes before, misunderstanding Moran's meaning or intentions or desires. The man can be infuriatingly difficult to read at times, although overall that has made him far more interesting to the Professor than someone who can always be easily understood. But it is blatantly obvious what exactly he is hoping for at this time. “I'm not in the mood tonight.”

“All right.” Moran turns over onto his back. He doesn't sound disappointed or resentful, because he isn't. He was hopeful that he might persuade the Professor to indulge him tonight but now that his advances have been declined he is perfectly content to simply lie next to the Professor and sleep close beside him, or at least after certain matters have been addressed. “Maybe I'll just... nip off and take care of things myself before I go to sleep then.”

Moriarty turns over to the next page, smiling to himself. “You do that,” he says.


	6. Chapter 6

Christmas Eve dawns, cold enough so that the grass and trees and the roof of the house and outbuildings are coated in frost. The house is still chilly; the fire in Moriarty and Moran's room has burned out and it seems Colonel Moriarty's grand house is rather lacking when it comes to providing warm water on tap, for though it has washstands within the bedrooms as well as a very grand-looking bathroom close to their room, the water that comes out of the taps is icy.

“We should've stayed home, at least the water there is hot,” Moran grumbles after gingerly testing the stream of water from the tap with his fingertips.

“Perhaps a cold bath might do you good, Sebastian,” Moriarty says with a wry smile. For despite going off to relieve himself the night before, Moran was still in a decidedly _amorous_ mood when he woke up this morning, curled up in the Professor's arms. Still he did not press the matter, and he knows that because of this Moriarty finds it amusing rather than bothersome, and he knows he is only being playfully teased now.

“I can't help it if you _provoke_ me, sir,” he says.

Mercifully he is spared the cold bath though by basins of steaming hot water being delivered by a servant, after which the pair wash and dress in what is perhaps record time. Neither of them wants to stand about barely clad in this house for very long.

Only Colonel Moriarty is present at breakfast when the two of them enter the dining hall, which seems to be one of the few warm rooms in the house.

“No Jamie or mother?” the Professor enquires.

“Mother decided she would rather have breakfast in her room. She insisted Jamie join her.”

“Poor Jamie,” the Professor remarks.

“Indeed,” Colonel Moriarty says. He has a newspaper held in front of him which he is perusing – the sporting pages, the Professor notes – and does not bother to look around or over it as he addresses his brother. “We are rather informal here incidentally so do help yourself to breakfast.”

The breakfast is laid out for them on a side table and this is also still warm. Sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and mushrooms are heaped on covered warming plates from which they may serve themselves, alongside racks of toast and pots of tea and coffee. The Professor, deciding to make the most of his elder brother's rare display of generosity, piles a good quantity of everything onto his plate. Moran is a little more moderate, feeling still too much of an outsider here to want to eat much.

They eat in silence for a while, neither of them feeling inclined to make conversation in front of Colonel Moriarty. Finally it is the man himself who breaks the silence.

“Do you still ride, Colonel?” he enquires, lowering his paper and peering at Moran.

Moran carefully swallows a mouthful of sausage before answering.“Occasionally. London's not really the place for it though.”

“Do you hunt?”

Moran thinks of India, of tigers, but he is certain that Colonel Moriarty is not referring to that. “Hunt what?”

“Foxes, of course. Vermin.”

“No.” Moran suppresses the urge to laugh. The idea of going out with practically an entire herd of horses along with their riders and a whole pack of hounds merely to hunt down a creature as small as a fox after he has single-handedly confronted man-eating tigers is rather laughable though. “Not my thing.”

“Well...” Colonel Moriarty seems to sniff disdainfully. “Never mind. Perhaps you might like to ride anyway. I could lend you a horse today.”

“That would be most kind of you,” Moran says, thinking that there is no doubt some catch here - that his mount will either be some ancient beast who cannot get above a walk or an animal with a reputation as a killer whom Colonel Moriarty hopes will throw Moran off and leave him humiliated. Either seems better than spending the day sitting around the vast house bored out of his mind however.

“And what about you, brother?” Colonel Moriarty enquires, looking at the Professor. “Will you ride?”

“No,” the Professor says firmly. “Thank you.” He too knows precisely the type of animal his brother will try to foist upon him, and it will not end well if he gets into its saddle, he is sure of that.

“Well, suit yourself.” Colonel Moriarty folds up his paper and, tucking it under his arm, stands up. “When you have finished your breakfast, Colonel, do feel free to come by the stable block around the back. I will make sure my groom has a horse ready for you.”

“Thank you,” Moran says. “I will.”

-

Breakfast over, Moriarty is reading a newspaper in the sitting room while Moran stands by the window.

“Do you mind if I go and see the stable yard now?” Moran asks.

“I will come with you,” Moriarty says. “There is really nothing of interest in the paper today.” He folds it up and places it neatly on the table. Shortly after this, wrapped up in a scarf and gloves, he walks alongside Moran around the house, along the path that leads them to the stables.

The stable block is as new and as ugly as the main house. Worse though is how quiet it seems. Although most of the boxes are occupied, not a single equine head is visible over any of the doors as Moran and Moriarty enter the yard. Moran is used to horses peering out or at least turning their heads if they are tethered, curious about a stranger's presence or hoping for food, but the horses are simply standing listlessly in their stables.

“You are aware my brother probably has very far from good intentions in offering to lend you a horse,” Moriarty remarks as Moran peers over one of the half doors.

“Yeah, I know.” The chestnut horse inside the box flicks an ear and rolls a white-ringed eye back at him, then carries on seemingly staring into space.

“He probably hopes you will be thrown.”

“Well, I've sat out a fair few bucks and rears in my time.” Giving up on the chestnut, Moran wanders on to the next box.

“Even so.” Moriarty pauses behind Moran. “I don't want you to put yourself at risk simply to get one over on my brother. You do not need to impress me, and he is inconsequential.”

“I'll be fine, Professor.” Moran glances back and smiles at him. “Promise.”

Moriarty seems to be about to say something more when from behind them comes the rattle of hooves on the gravel path.

“Ah, Colonel, you came,” Colonel Moriarty says, riding up on a dark bay, nearly black, horse at a furious trot. Hauling sharply on the curb reins, he pulls the horse to an ungainly halt. It stands, sweating and pawing at the gravel as Colonel Moriarty looks down at Moran. “I have your mount ready for you. Perkins!” he shouts suddenly, and his horse throws up its head at the noise. “I'm sure you'll like it,” he says, pulling on the reins again, and he smiles.

There is such an edge to that smile that Moran narrows his eyes slightly. He isn't sure now quite what he is expecting to be led out for him. Some barely broken stallion of monstrous size, perhaps.

Instead what is led forth by a man who is apparently the head groom, Perkins, is a bay mare, a little over sixteen hands, saddled and bridled and with her head strapped down with a martingale. Her conker-coloured coat is dark in places with sweat; her neck is lathered in it. As she is led forward she jogs and side-steps and swishes her tail and the groom looks far from happy about having to lead her.

“Foxtrot,” Colonel Moriarty says. “A highly-strung beast, but I'm sure you can manage her.”

“Indeed he can,” the Professor says, though he is well aware that his older brother's tone implies mockery and disbelief. A man such as Moran – one of those chaps who spent too long in India riding some ill bred and ugly little polo pony no doubt - can hardly be a good rider, Colonel Moriarty thinks. The Professor is as aware as Moran that his elder brother has only produced this animal for Moran to ride in the hope that the creature will throw him off and trample him into the mud. It might be folly indeed to allow Moran into her saddle simply to try to get one up on James but Moriarty cannot quite bring himself to try forbidding Moran to even try.

“I'm going to pop this chap over a few fences,” Colonel Moriarty remarks, slapping the neck of his dark bay horse. “Why don't you though get to know Foxtrot, have a ride around the paddock on her first?”

“Suits me,” Moran says. He suspects Colonel Moriarty will remain within watching distance of him however, hoping to see him be thrown.

As Colonel Moriarty gallops away from a standstill, Moran stands and regards Foxtrot for a moment.

Beside him, Moriarty too eyes the animal. “She seems aggressive,” he remarks.

“Sirs, I feel I must be open with you,” the groom, Perkins, says as Moran approaches the horse from the side. “I know I should be loyal to my master but when a man's well-being may be at stake...”

“What do you mean?” Moriarty asks abruptly.

“I would not give Foxtrot to a guest to ride. Every time Colonel Moriarty has ridden her she's thrown him. He is this close to having her shot.”

“Is he now?” Moran says, regarding the bay mare with a critical eye. She is beautifully put together, with long and strong legs, powerful quarters and a chest that is broad enough to suggest she has a good strong heart and lungs in there. She is light enough to have some speed but sturdy enough to carry a grown man over some distance. Her head is rather plain, lacking the refinement many would seek in a riding horse, but with a delicate muzzle and neat ears and her forehead is marked with a pretty white star. But she also shows white around her eyes and tosses her head up repeatedly against the restraining strap, and there is blood flecking the froth around the corners of her mouth and spattering her chest. Closer too, he can also see how both her knees are scarred – the hair is patchy and has grown in white in places. Both knees have been smeared with something dark, boot polish maybe, to hide the worst of the damage, but there is only so much that can conceal. “What happened to her knees?”

“He put her at a fence that was far too big for such a green horse,” Perkins answers. “She tried, game little lass, but she weren't used to it, she dropped her feet, caught 'em on something, wire maybe, somersaulted over and landed practically on her nose, broke both her knees. Pitched his nibs off and all, broke his collarbone. It was a miracle she didn't break her neck, or his. After that she's behaved even worse with him every time he tries to get on her. He has only given you her to ride because he believes she will throw you too.”

Moriarty stands looking at the horse, contemplating the animal's front legs. “Her legs were broken?” he says, somewhat bemused, since he thought horses were always put down when they broke a leg.

“Not the bones, it means she came down on her knees, gashed them open; they never heal up neatly after that,” Moran explains. “Is she sound?” he asks Perkins as he runs a hand down the mare's foreleg. She flinches and shies but he rubs his other hand against her neck, reassuring her. “There's a good lass, easy now,” he says softly.

“Oh sound as a bell now, sir,” the groom replies. “But her knees ain't so pretty to look at, unfortunately.”

“Does that really matter?” Moriarty says. “A cosmetic imperfection only?” And he thinks of the scars which Moran bears on his body. He finds them interesting and does not consider them to be defects.

“Plenty of people won't want a horse with broken knees, they'll think if it came down once it'll do it again, and they ain't pretty enough to ride or drive in all the fashionable locations,” Moran says.

“Oh, _fashion_ ,” Moriarty says disdainfully. It is not that he doesn't care at all about what is fashionable – even he may choose to wear a particular item of clothing that is considered fashionable, if he likes it. But fashions quickly become silly in his eyes when they cause people to reject things they like simply because they are not considered 'fashionable', or they will make people reject a perfectly good horse just because of a few scars.

“Makes no difference to me so long as she's sound.” Moran moves to the horse's head and slips his fingers beneath her jaw. “That chain's far too tight.”

“That's how Colonel Moriarty insists it be fastened,” Perkins says, a touch defensively.

“Well I'm not Colonel Moriarty.” Moran undoes the curb chain, letting it out by several links before he reattaches it. “All right poppet, that's a bit better, eh?” She flinches away from him in a way that makes him think she has been hit around the head before. “She might be better without half this ironmongery in her mouth though,” he says. Some horses genuinely seem to work better with two bits, but many more seem to have as many bits as possible rammed in their mouths purely because it is the latest trend to do so, or because people think the use of pain and brute force is a fine substitute for proper training.

Gently he works her mouth open, despite the tossing of her head. He finds even the snaffle bit she wears is a harsh one, thin and twisted, and he grimaces at the sight of it.

Perkins looks appalled by the idea of removing anything from Foxtrot's bridle. “You'd never hold her without the double.”

“I've ridden horses feistier than her without so much as a rope round their necks,” Moran says, very matter of fact, as he loosens her martingale as well. He does not intend to boast. He knows he is not infallible and has sometimes been overly confident around certain horses, and has once or twice been bucked off as a result. But he also knows that a lot of horses only play up because they are in pain and any attempts to counter that by adding more and harsher bits and tight straps will only increase the pain and make their behaviour worse.

While Perkins holds Foxtrot by the bridle, Moran checks the tightness of the girth before pulling down the stirrup irons, adjusting each stirrup leather by a couple of holes.

“Are you quite sure this is advisable?” Moriarty enquires as Moran takes the reins from Perkins and leads her across the yard towards the stone mounting block.

“Safe as 'ouses, Professor.” Moran grins at him as he climbs up the three stone steps and from there jumps lightly into Foxtrot's saddle. He could have managed perfectly well without the mounting block but with a horse such as this he prefers to get aboard her as gently as possible. He holds her reins as he mounts but he leaves them loose so as not to jab her in the mouth. As he settles into her saddle, beneath him she tenses and for a moment he is certain she is gathering herself to buck. She feels like a bomb about to go off, or a gun with a hair trigger. All she has ever known from her current owner is brute force and pain and just because this man is not her usual rider doesn't mean she isn't expecting more of the same.

But she does not explode. That the reins are still loose rather than tugging at her already sore mouth and that she is not being struck with a whip or jabbed with spurs seems to confuse her, and Moran takes advantage of her momentary confusion to drive her forward, closing his legs against her sides, pressing but not kicking. She walks on hurriedly, ungainly as a foal and still stiff with nervous tension, but she is moving forward rather than exploding upwards, and that is something.

“Good girl,” Moran says softly, stroking her neck as she completes a full circuit of the small paddock. She flicks back an ear, listening to him. Has anyone ever given her a truly kind word in her life, he wonders. Maybe, but not for a long time.

At first she still tosses her head about, but finding the martingale is now loose and Moran's grip on her reins is light and so there is really nothing to fight against, she stops this by the second circuit. As she drops her head slightly her movements become a little more fluid and elegant.

Moriarty watches Moran nudge the bay horse into a trot. He doesn't understand horses much himself, but he knows all about his elder brother's capacity for cruelty. It is no surprise to him then that as Colonel Moriarty comes galloping back on his own dark bay, Foxtrot's demeanour changes. It seemed that Moran was starting to get somewhere with her but as her master comes near she baulks and rears. She doesn't stand all the way up and Moran sits it out easily, but the sight is enough to cause the Professor a flutter of unease.

“Having a hard time?” Colonel Moriarty enquires, as his dark bay prances and sidesteps beneath him. The animal is blowing hard and lathered with sweat and Moran eyes this disdainfully.

“She's just nervous,” he says, patting Foxtrot's neck. She is standing still now, tense again, tail held up stiffly, but not fidgeting as the dark bay is doing.

Colonel Moriarty boots his horse in the ribs as it begins to sidestep. “Stand still!” he snarls, and gives it a yank in the mouth for good measure.

“Perhaps it might behave if you would stop hurting it,” the Professor suggests, for even he is not ignorant of the fact that kicking its sides so forcefully and pulling on its mouth must cause a horse pain, as well as confusing it as to what is actually desired of it.

Colonel Moriarty spins around in the saddle to glare at his brother. “And what the hell do you know about horses?”

The Professor merely smiles back at him in that manner of his which has long unnerved Colonel Moriarty.

He drops his gaze before turning back to look at Moran. “Well, Colonel, if you think you can handle that brute, why don't you take her out for a gallop?” He smiles, playing at being the jovial and benign host, but there is still something nasty below the surface of his expression.

The Professor wonders if Foxtrot is prone to bolting.

“She's not fit,” Moran says. And it's true; Foxtrot is way out of condition, evidently having been barely ridden for months.

“Scared?” Colonel Moriarty sneers.

Moran gives him a disparaging look. “You know full well this horse is not up to much galloping at present.” Probably because Colonel Moriarty has been too scared to ride her much himself, he thinks, while Perkins likely feels he is not paid anywhere near enough to risk his neck exercising the mare.

“Oh she can stand up to a short gallop, just a circuit of the field over there.” Colonel Moriarty uses his hunting crop to point vaguely towards the field he means.

Moran holds his gaze for a few seconds, before looking down, smirking. Colonel Moriarty fully expects Foxtrot to bolt and him to be run away with, or perhaps to fall off on his arse. “All right,” he says, squeezing Foxtrot's sides with his legs again. She bounds away, jumping from a standstill straight into a trot, eager to be well away from Colonel Moriarty. “Go on, girl,” he says, riding her through the open gateway into the large empty field. It is roughly square, mostly ringed by hedgerows with a few trees up towards the far corner. It is cold today so the ground is firm but not frozen solid. Portions of the hedge have obviously been regularly used as jumps and the ground, particularly in areas before these where the grass has largely worn away, is marked with hoof-prints.

Moran though is uninterested in jumping the mare. On other horses he has successfully cleared everything from fully laden picnic tables to a single glass of beer set on the ground but given her history, putting her over fences is probably going to be a very sore point with her. He only sets her into a canter, eventually seguing into a controlled gallop, riding her around the perimeter of the field. Even with her scarred forelegs and not in peak condition, she is fast. She sticks her nose out like a racehorse straining to win and Moran knows for sure now that she has run away with Colonel Moriarty, likely more than once. But Moran is not heavy handed, he does not batter her sides with his heels or jab her with spurs or whip her. His contact with the bits in her mouth is light, enough to remind her that he is there, not to hurt her. As she runs he feels the cold air against his face; he can hear her hooves pounding on the ground beneath them. Once more he has that incredible sense of freedom, of being as close as a man can get to flying.

“Good girl!” he calls to her over the sound of her hooves, patting her neck. Nearing the corner of the field he feels her hesitate under him as they approach the part which has obviously been used as a jump many times. If he put her at that fence now she would refuse and she would bolt away from it, running from sheer terror, he is sure. The memories of falling under Colonel Moriarty are far too raw for her. But instead of setting her at it, before they quite reach the corner and she has time to think about dodging away herself he guides her around it, arcing smoothly so they gallop along the furthest side of the field. Her sense of relief is almost palpable and she runs on without hesitation once the dreaded jump is behind them. At the next corner again they turn, so that they are heading back in the direction of the stable yard. Once headed home, Moran sits back in the saddle, bringing her back to canter, then dropping her down to a walk. She is blowing hard and beginning to sweat, but she is in nothing like the state of Colonel Moriarty's dark bay.

Moran dismounts from her and leads her back, rubbing her neck as he does so. “She's a grand horse,” he says, grinning as they walk back across the yard.

Colonel Moriarty still sits astride his dark bay and he watches them, his lips tightly compressed.

“She went beautifully,” the Professor remarks, smiling as Moran looks over at him, still wearing a grin on his face. For this brief moment in time his lover looks so happy, delighted as a child presented with a new toy. The Professor knows however that where his eldest brother is concerned, the situation cannot end well. In handling Foxtrot so well Moran has shown Colonel Moriarty up, and Colonel Moriarty will not forgive Moran for that.

“Yes, well,” he says now. “He only rode her around like a seaside donkey. Hardly anything trying. You should have put her at the hedge, made the brute jump it.”

Moran rubs Foxtrot's neck gently. “I'm not jumping her.”

“Why not? Are you afraid of a little hedge?” Colonel Moriarty sneers.

“No, but she is.” In war, maybe things would be different. In war, horses had to be reliable and those that could not be relied on and could not quickly get past their fears would soon die in battle or be disposed of. Even then though, Moran did not treat his mounts with deliberate cruelty. He was tough on them at times, because the situations he was in at those times was tough and there was nothing he could do to change it. Sometimes it was completely impossible to have his mount watered or fed or rested no matter how much he might want to fetch them water or fodder or allow them to rest. But he cared about his horses still, and even in the worst moments he would speak kindly to them, stroke their necks and only ever push them to their limits or beyond when he could do nothing else.

Foxtrot is no war horse though. She is understandably afraid of jumping again. In time perhaps she can be coaxed past that fear but right now it is not vitally important to the outcome of a battle that she be made to jump a fence so Moran has absolutely no intention of forcing her to do so.

“Yes, well, that's her trouble isn't it,” Colonel Moriarty says. “Damned lazy brute, eating her head off in my stable and refusing to do any real work. What use is a hunter who won't bloody jump? I wouldn't get too attached to her if I were you. She'll be gone soon enough.”

“I'll buy her,” Moran says. “Name your price.”

“She's not for sale,” Colonel Moriarty says coolly.

“You don't want her,” Moran says scathingly. “She's just wasted here.”

“True, but I could not possibly sell on a dangerous animal.”

“ _Dangerous_ ,” Moran scoffs.

“You've seen her knees,” Colonel Moriarty says. “The brute went down on them once already, likely she'll do it again. She's useless for hunting and too highly strung and too scarred to be a hack. I kept her with thoughts of breeding from her in mind, but really, a mad mare like that will only breed mad foals, and what use would they be? The only fit place for her is the knacker's. Dogmeat will be a better name for her soon.” And he laughs as he kicks his own mount into a trot and rides away.

Moriarty looks at Moran, seeing the fury that has flashed across his face, and Moriarty understands the cause entirely. His brother will have this horse slaughtered and butchered and fed to foxhounds simply out of spite, because Moran has not only ridden her beautifully and shown Colonel Moriarty up in the process but also made it that bit too obvious that he likes her. It might have been better had Moran not offered to buy her. If he had only pretended not to care about the horse at all the mare might have had a reprieve, but sometimes Moran seems to be ruled by his heart and not by his head.

Moriarty's own anger does not show externally, but simmers away beneath the surface. He has long known his elder brother is a cruel and petty man, one who delights in hurting others simply because he can. The Professor, as soon as he was big enough and strong enough and, most importantly, smart enough to fight back had put a stop to his older brother's mistreatment of him, as well as of Jamie, but James simply turned his attentions elsewhere after that.

“He can't just kill her,” Moran says as he walks Foxtrot back to her stable. “If he really wanted her dead he'd have just shot her when she injured her knees.”

“My brother is a spiteful man,” Moriarty remarks, following to one side.

“Here sir, let me take her,” Perkins says.

“Come Moran,” Moriarty says. “Let the man do his job.”

Moran's instinct is to take care of Foxtrot himself - untack her, rub her down, see that she is watered and fed - but he supposes showing any further interest in her at present would firmly sign her death warrant. Reluctantly he gives her neck a final pat and hands the reins over to Perkins.

“Let us take a short stroll, hmm?” Moriarty says, slipping his arm through Moran's, manoeuvring him away before he can change his mind and try to assist with or even take over Foxtrot's care.

“Right sir.”

“Leave my brother be for now,” Moriarty advises him as they walk arm in arm down the path past the house, heading towards an old summerhouse. The building would seem to be older than the main house, perhaps the only survivor of the buildings that were first on this plot of land, and is not in good repair. The roof is full of holes, the windows are broken, the doors are hanging open and sagging on their hinges and its white paint is peeling off, but there is something oddly appealing about the place and its decay. There is also a wooden bench inside it which, after checking it over, Moriarty ascertains is safe to sit on. Brushing aside some cobwebs and dirt with his gloved hand, he sits and pats the space beside him.

“I can't just let him kill Foxtrot though,” Moran says, sitting down next to the Professor.

“Well you will achieve nothing by nagging at him, other than making him send her to the knacker's even more swiftly.” Moriarty pats Moran's thigh gently. “Trust me, Sebastian.”

“I do, sir.”

“Well then,” Moriarty says, as if this statement does not need expanding on.

Moran parts his lips as if to speak further, then closes his mouth again. He thinks of Foxtrot still, beautiful but damaged, and of the pony he had when he was a boy, for a time anyway, until one day his father disposed of her. His hands clench into fists, nails digging into his palms even through his gloves.

“Sebastian.” Without looking at him, Moriarty slips his hand over Moran's, drawing it open. His focus seems fixed on the house but he knows what he is doing; knows the sort of thoughts Moran is having right now, if not every detail of them, and he knows the kind of mood Moran will end up in if left to dwell on such matters. “It really is a most hideous house,” he remarks. “For someone who is as obsessed with the family name and reputation as my elder brother, he has a strange inability to grasp that his abode is likely the talking point of the neighbourhood, and not for good reasons.”

Moran laughs, a lot of his tension escaping him with the sound. “Professor,” he says after a second or two.

“Yes?”

“May I ask you a personal question?”

“You may.” Moriarty answers this without looking at him.

“What happened to your father?”

“He's dead. He has been so for some years now.”

“You were not close to him either?”

“I suppose that I had certain... _sympathies_ for him, but he and I could never really understand each other.”

“Was he cruel to you?”

“I would not call it cruelty. He was merely a man pushed into roles for which he was ill-suited – husband, father. Perhaps he resented his children, but he never raised his hand to us, or starved us, or mistreated us in some other manner.”

Thinking of how his own father took his hatred of his only surviving son out upon him, Moran looks down at the floor. Moriarty, noticing this, squeezes Moran's hand.

“James does not wish to talk about our father, of course,” he remarks, still clasping Moran's hand, rubbing the back of it with his thumb seemingly absent-mindedly. “To him our father is rather a stain on the name of Moriarty.” He smiles thinly.

“James is a bully and a brute.”

“Of course. He treats women, foreigners and animals especially badly, but those are the sorts of crimes that our polite society tends to be rather forgiving about. Anyway.” He stands up. “It is becoming rather cold, so perhaps we should head indoors. I have an urge to explore my brother's house further.”

“Right sir.” Moran follows the Professor inside, prepared to be bored for the rest of the day.


	7. Chapter 7

By the afternoon Moriarty has wandered off somewhere in the house and Moran has found himself in what would appear to be Colonel Moriarty's library. He is still in there when Jamie comes in. Moran had been examining the bookshelves, which look to him as if they have never been touched at all except when a maid occasionally flicks a duster over them. He cannot really see Colonel Moriarty being a voracious reader so this hardly surprises him. Likely he probably had these books bought by the boxful, perhaps shipped in from someone else's library after they passed away.

“He has all of this for show, you know,” Jamie remarks as he enters, as if he can read Moran's thoughts. Ollie trots in at his master's heels. “The books, the paintings, the sculptures, the fancy gardens. He thinks it will impress us.”

“And does it impress you?” Moran enquires.

Jamie laughs. “No.”

Looking at the youngest Moriarty brother, Moran still does not see very much of the Professor in him. Perhaps there is a slight similarity to the eyes but Jamie's hair is definitely more blond than auburn and his build is far lighter. A sensitive boy, Moran thinks. A poet and a dreamer, one who is quite content to 'play with trains', as Colonel Moriarty scathingly calls it, and live with his sweet little dog. He does at least though seem to share the Professor's contempt for their older brother.

“Are you keeping yourself amused?” Jamie asks, stepping closer towards Moran.

Moran shrugs. “I suppose so. I went riding for a bit.”

“Rather you than me.”

“You don't like horses?”

“I find them rather frightening.” Jamie gives him a slightly embarrassed smile. “It is strange that you are even here,” he remarks. He begins to fiddle with some of the books, pulling one out of its place on the shelf without seeming to pay attention to what the book actually is. “I don't mean...” He glances abruptly back at Moran. “I don't mean that in an offensive way, I mean.... it's just unusual, for my brother – my brother the Professor – to have a companion. He has never brought anyone along with him to any other family gathering. He has always been the solitary sort. At least... I always thought he was.” He pushes the book back into its place, raising a small dust cloud, which seems to confirm that even the maid rarely ventures in here. “I'm glad you're here,” he says after a moment. “James – elder James – is such a bore really and Mama is always away with the fairies. James – the Professor – is the one I have always got along best with, although I fear he finds me tiresome.”

“Not tiresome, just...” Moran ponders how to express this politely. “You are just different to him.”

“Yes, and he finds me tiresome because of that.” Jamie smiles.

“I believe he is fond of you, in his own way.”

“Perhaps.” Jamie looks far from convinced however. “You are not anything like I would have imagined any friend of his would be,” he remarks after a pause.

“Not intellectual, you mean?” Now Moran smiles.

“I'm not insulting you, I promise,” Jamie says. “But you're not... from that world of his; academia; mathematics.”

“No,” Moran agrees. “In many ways, we are little alike.”

“And the way you talk is...”

“Common?” Moran grins.

“Not common, precisely.” Jamie takes a step closer to Moran. “But you do sound as if... you come from a world that is very different to the Professor's.”

“Didn't always talk like this,” Moran admits. “S'pose I just picked it up over the years.” And it was always a fine way to annoy his hated father, he thinks, but he is not about to confide that in Jamie.

“Actually I find the way you talk rather charming,” Jamie says. He takes another step towards Moran. “Do you have no family of your own, Colonel?”

“Moran, please.” Moran thinks in these circumstances he would rather not be addressed as 'Colonel', not when Moriarty's hated elder brother possesses the same title.

“Moran, then.” Jamie smiles again. “I don't mean to pry, it is just that you are spending Christmas with us, rather than with your own family.”

“I have none left that I'd want to spend Christmas with,” Moran answers.

“I see,” Jamie says, although he probably doesn't. “You probably think our family is not really one you would wish to spend Christmas with either by now. Perhaps though...” Jamie takes another step towards Moran, who finds himself backed against the library shelves. “I can make your stay here much more pleasurable?”

Jamie seems so sweet and so naïve, so it's surprising when he leans forward and tries to press a kiss to Moran's lips.

Moran ducks away before Jamie's lips quite make contact with his own however. “Jamie, no,” he says, which probably doesn't really help the situation much – addressing the man by his Christian name – but he doesn't know what else to call him. He simply cannot bring himself to address him merely as Moriarty, even though he probably has never actually addressed the Professor in that way.

Jamie pulls back, looking startled and wounded, and perhaps a little afraid. “I'm sorry, I thought that... you like men.”

“I do,” Moran says, aware that this is a potentially dangerous admission to make, but under the circumstances probably not one that is going to rebound on him, not when it was Jamie who made the advances towards him. He wonders though how Jamie knows that, by simply reading Moran's behaviour or has Colonel Moriarty been scathingly telling Jamie of Moran's proclivities?

“Then you don't like _me,_ ” Jamie says sadly.

“I do!” Moran protests. Which is probably true enough. He can certainly understand why even the Professor would have at least some affection for his younger brother. And he doesn't want to hurt Jamie, but his first instinct is always to protect the Professor and that includes protecting his secrets. If the Professor has never told Jamie that he is in an intimate relationship with a man, it hardly seems to be Moran's place to do so. “Just... I just... can't.”

“Why not?” Puzzlement now seems to be eclipsing the hurt written across Jamie's face, shortly after chased by a look of realisation. “You already have someone?”

“Yes,” calls a voice from across the library. “Me.”

Jamie looks round with a start as the Professor closes the door behind him and strides across to face his brother.

“You and Moran are....?” Jamie looks down at his shoes. “Good God, James, I didn't know. If I'd known.... I would never have... I'm sorry. I thought you and he were simply friends.”

“I admit that I am not entirely sure what we are,” the Professor remarks. “But I do not think that there is anything simple about it.” He halts before his younger brother and reaches out to gently lift Jamie's chin. “Jamie,” he says softly, something endlessly wise and kind and compassionate in the manner in which he looks at his younger sibling. “I'm not angry with you.”

Jamie smiles, but there is still something in his manner that speaks of fear. Moran can see it in him, in his posture, in the way he cannot quite meet his older brother's gaze. The Colonel is sure the Professor would never have truly mistreated Jamie; to do so would be like kicking a puppy, and the Professor, while he is perfectly capable of committing murder, is not that manner of man. It seems more that even Jamie, who knows very little about his brother's true nature, can sense that behind his affable exterior there is something very dark and very dangerous. Either that or he simply has a mortal terror of offending his brother.

“I'm sorry,” he says again.

“There is no need to be sorry,” the Professor says softly.

“I'll, uh, I'll go, leave you two in peace.” Jamie scurries from the room with Ollie bounding at his heels.

Moran still stands with his back to the bookshelves, regarding the Professor steadily.

“How long were you there?” he asks. He would have to admit that even with his sharp senses, he hadn't noticed the Professor appear.

“Long enough.”

“You saw him try to kiss me.”

“I did.” Moriarty walks towards Moran, who, unlike Jamie, continues to watch his advance. “Did you lead him on?”

“Course not.” Moran says this scornfully, though without anger. The Professor, he thinks, is being more playfully provocative than genuinely accusatory.

“Because you are faithful to me.” It is a statement, not a question.

“Of course.”

“But you were still tempted.” Also a statement rather than a query.

“All right.” Moran shrugs. “Yeah. A little.” Honesty seems better than lying and trying to pretend the thought of bedding Jamie hasn't flickered through his mind.

He looks into the Professor's blue-grey eyes, trying to read his expression. Is he angry? Jealous? He appears strangely serene, but then the Professor has always been very good at hiding his rage behind a mask of calm, something certain men who have crossed him have learned to their detriment.

“Jamie is... sweet,” Moran says. “Men like him... I used to bed 'em once.” In fact he probably had a particular weakness for precisely that sort of man – the gentle sort, the ones who were not really cut out for army life usually. They would look at him with a mixture of awe and adoration and make the prettiest sounds when he gave them what was very often their first experience of such physical intimacy with another man. Thinking about that now, it isn't shame exactly that he feels – they were younger often but certainly not children; they were willing; he never pushed or coerced and the sex was... just sex. It was neither something highly profound nor something dirty and sinful, merely a pleasurable act done between two (or occasionally more) people. There may have been one or two sour moments when one of his past paramours would develop some deeper feeling for him that he did not reciprocate, but nobody got hurt, or at least, when they did, it was not Moran's fault that they did.

But Moran back then was a different man to Moran now, and to think about the disparity between the two gives him a strange feeling. Now he is faithful, _committed,_ physically and emotionally too, and it does still feel rather odd, to consider the possibilities but to have no inclination to want to act on them. Not unpleasant though, that feeling he gets when he realises how much he has changed. It is quite the opposite actually.

“Just cos I wondered what it might be like for a second or two, don't mean I actually thought about taking him to bed,” he says. He puts his hand against the Professor's chest, watching him still, reading his reactions. “You're the only one I think about like that now.”

Moriarty remains standing before him, his gaze resting upon Moran's still. He does not flinch or pull back when Moran touches him. “I am not accusing you of anything, you know,” he says at last. “Simply... curious.” Because Moran's desires for others are still not something he can truly understand, nor are they feelings he can relate to, but they interest him.

“I _am_ faithful to you, sir.”

“That is gratifying to know.” Moriarty smiles as he backs away from Moran, turning slowly before he speaks again. “You will not then, I suppose, be requiring a reminder of your place.”

Moran straightens up at once. “Wait...” He strides after Moriarty. “Sir, d'you mean...?”

“My meaning is irrelevant, seeing as you have no need of such a reminder.” Moriarty glances back at Moran over his shoulder, still smiling coyly.

“Professor.” Moran pauses and unconsciously runs his tongue across his lower lip. “I am loyal to you, yes, but I think... it might still be of benefit for you to give me that reminder, sir.”

“I see.” Moriarty remains still, facing forward now, almost unreadable to Moran. “Well then,” he says after a short pause. “You had best come up to my room then.”


	8. Chapter 8

Moriarty leads the way to the bedroom which has been given to him for the duration of his stay here, though really of course it has become _their_ room. It is a rather large room – too large really, Moran thinks again upon entering it behind the Professor. Even though the bed is big it looks lost inside the room and the presence of a pair of bedside tables, a dressing table, chest of drawers, chair and a wardrobe still don't really suppress the effect of there simply being too much space. While he has rather a horror of confined spaces, Moran would still feel safer in a smaller room. Here everything seems too open and makes him feel very vulnerable as he stands there just inside the doorway.

“Lock the door,” Moriarty instructs him.

“Right sir.” Moran does so, before turning back to face Moriarty. He remains standing still however, waiting for the Professor to make the next move.

Moriarty shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over the back of the chair. Standing before the window in his shirtsleeves, he looks out across the formal gardens with the neat gravel paths and hedges clipped into quaint shapes.

“It is all immensely tedious,” he remarks as he begins to loosen his tie.

“What is, sir?” Moran asks.

“This.” Moriarty gestures towards the gardens before turning back to sweep a hand across to indicate the room. “My brother's house; the gardens; all of that that he spends his money on, all this expensive wallpaper and furniture and artwork he buys simply because he thinks it is the thing to do. He is so bound up by conventions, and in caring about appearances; about doing everything possible to avoid bringing shame upon the family name.” He pauses in beginning to undress to draw the curtains across the window, shutting off the view of the rather boring lawns, before he tugs his tie off and drops this over his jacket on the chair.

“Whereas you, Professor, refuse to be bound by conventions,” Moran says with a grin.

“Indeed. Even Jamie defies conventions, to some extent at least.”

At the mention of the Professor's younger brother, Moran drops his head slightly. “Sir, you won't... do anything to punish Jamie, will you? For making advances towards me. He truly did not know that we are... that we're together.”

“Do you think me monstrous, Moran?” Moriarty enquires, turning to face the Colonel fully.

“No sir. I just...” Moran lifts his head again. “He's embarrassed, and I don't want to see him humiliated over a mistake.”

“I will talk to Jamie later, reassure him that I bear him no ill will.” Moriarty smiles. “Will that please you, Sebastian?” He steps towards Moran, slipping his hands around Moran's waist, drawing him closer.

“Yes sir,” Moran whispers.

“Well then. Stop thinking about my brother and focus your attention on me,” Moriarty commands.

It is not really a difficult instruction to follow, when the Professor starts to undo Moran's clothing, removing jacket and waistcoat first. Often Moriarty prefers to order Moran to strip but at present he seems to prefer to take total charge of undressing him. In fact when Moran tries to help him he finds his hands being firmly pushed away.

“Sit here,” Moriarty says, pushing him back against the bed in order to undo his boots.

Soon enough, Moran is completely naked. He shivers in the coolness of the room, for while there is still a good fire going in the fireplace, the room is too big for it to heat it thoroughly. Moriarty though seems to find this intriguing, seeing Moran tremble, and how his nipples have stiffened in a way which has very little to do with arousal.

“Are you cold, my dove?” he asks softly, as he brushes a thumb across Moran's right nipple, making Moran's breath catch in his throat momentarily.

“Fucking freezing.” Moran laughs. “I'm surprised my balls are still outside my body.”

Moriarty slips his hand down to gently cup the objects in question. His hand is pleasingly warm, his touch feather-light, barely increasing in intensity even as he shifts it to grasp Moran's hardening prick. “Even so,” he remarks, “you appear very eager.”

“I always am for you.” Moran grins up at him as Moriarty leans over him, pressing him back against the bed. Moriarty kisses him, one hand behind the back of Moran's head, his fingers gripping the short hairs above the nape of Moran's neck. The kiss is slow and deep, an act of dominance, the Professor asserting his power over Moran, and it makes the Colonel's prick hard as a rock.

“Sometimes I think your appetite for this is insatiable,” Moriarty says as he pulls away at last, but he is smiling too, showing that this is no moral judgement; that this fact does not displease him either. In fact he rather adores it, that Moran continues to be so _excited_ by him. He knows that he is not the kind of man whom most people would consider especially attractive, not aesthetically at least. He keeps himself clean and neat, he wears good clothes and, of course, he has money, and plenty of people would find those facts appealing enough, but they would still not be attracted to _him,_ and still his face or his body are not possessed of that kind of beauty which many people would want to emulate in paint or in marble or write poetry about. Yet Moran seems capable of getting hard simply by glancing at the Professor sometimes.

“Not quite.” Moran continues to grin. “Close though.” He watches Moriarty step backwards, unconcerned by this withdrawal. It is clear that the Professor has only done so in order to remove his own shoes.

Once he is barefoot, Moriarty strolls over to where his travel bag sits beside the bed. He stoops and retrieves a glass vial from within its depths. “Come here,” he says.

Moran stands and strides over to him. Once standing before the Professor again he finds the vial being pressed into his palm.

“Hold that,” Moriarty says as he unbuttons his own trousers. He removes them and drops them aside with an unusual lack of concern for where or how they fall. “Would you prefer me younger and slimmer, like Jamie?”

“No sir.” Moran watches him intently, his gaze dropping down towards Moriarty's strong thighs. “You're in fine shape anyway, sir.”

“I'm glad you think so.” Moriarty removes his drawers before moving towards Moran. He closes his hand over Moran's hand, clasping the vial, and pulls out its stopper with his other hand. He tips a small quantity of oil into Moran's free hand before guiding that hand downwards.

Without a word Moran allows his oiled palm to be closed around the Professor's prick, Moriarty's hand wrapped around his, smearing the oil over the Professor's shaft, drawing it from root to tip. Moriarty's breath hitches in his throat at the caress. Even though he is setting the pace, it is very intense, even more so when Moran looks up at him all the while, something predatory in his expression even in his submissiveness. It's almost frightening, the intensity of the look in Moran's eyes, and his own impending loss of control, his body being in thrall to some ancient biological urges. There are multiple reasons why the Professor had so few sexual partners prior to Moran, but one of them was certainly Moriarty's fear of letting go - losing control, showing vulnerability even – in front of another.

But Moran was different to all the rest. Moriarty knows him, he trusts him, and though sometimes when they are physically close in this manner still that flicker of fear runs through him, he can easily overcome it.

“Sir?” Moran says, his hand stilling. He regards Moriarty questioningly, sensing his momentary hesitation, seeing the slight tension in his jaw, seeking confirmation that the Professor wishes to proceed.

Moriarty swallows slowly, pushing aside his brief unease, and he nods.

Moran continues to stroke the Professor's length. His touch is sure and careful, not enough to bring the Professor anywhere close to climax yet, but enough to coax him to hardness, since Moran may be able to get hard merely by looking at his partner sometimes but Moriarty tends to need far more physical stimulation first.

At last Moriarty puts his hand back over Moran's again, halting him, before with a hand placed to Moran's chest he shoves him back against the wall. He clamps his mouth over Moran's, kissing him even more forcefully than before, and he presses his prick between Moran's thighs.

“Professor, _God_ ,” he breathes as Moriarty's length brushes against his.

“Not your god,” Moriarty says fiercely, laughing. His hands are around Moran's waist, drawing him close as he thrusts between Moran's legs. It is rough and more forceful than many of the times he has taken Moran. Perhaps it is the thought of Moran and Jamie together that provokes him. He knows though that Moran would not betray him so; that even poor Jamie would not have made advances towards Moran had he realised the nature of his relationship with the Professor. It is not anger or jealousy really that he is experiencing; he feels only oddly excited, his possessiveness over Moran stirred and provoked but not his rage, and he can tell by Moran's reactions that he is relishing Moriarty's assertiveness over him.

“Professor, Professor, Professor,” he says, as if he has forgotten in the heat of the moment that other words exist. The look in Moriarty's eyes too, somehow far more feral than usual, sends a thrill through Moran. He is not even presently getting much physical stimulation of his own, but his own cock is still stiff and he is not so very far away from climaxing simply from the intensity of Moriarty's thrusts between his legs, and that look in his eyes.

“You are _mine_ ,” Moriarty growls, his face pressed close to Moran's.

“Yes sir.” Moran's hands are on the Professor's buttocks, drawing him even closer, as he continues to thrust his arousal into that delicious tight warmth between the Colonel's inner thighs.

A few minutes in this position though and Moriarty is becoming increasingly aware that, irritatingly, he is not as young nor as fit as he once was. His thrusts become slower and shallower as some of his initial furious energy subsides. As it passes desire of a different kind takes over, one that wants greater comfort.

“Perhaps, Moran, it is time for us to move,” he says, pausing, looking up at Moran, panting slightly from the exertion. Even though the room is still cool, his hair is soaked with sweat.

“Right sir.”

“Come here.” Moriarty seizes Moran's hand and leads him over towards the fireplace. Before it lies a thick creamy-white sheepskin rug which Colonel Moriarty probably did not intend to be used for the purposes they are about to use it for when he ordered its purchase. That fact alone is enough to make the idea appealing to both of them.

Outside it is growing dark, winter's gloom descending over the garden even though it is only the afternoon. The sky is clear, promising a bitter night to come. But it is warm here by the fire and the shadows creeping across the room make it feel less vast and barren; more intimate. Moriarty leans forward and kisses Moran on the lips, softly and gently this time, still kissing him as he presses him back against the rug.

“Professor,” Moran says again, as Moriarty leans over him. He looks up at the Professor, whose hair has fallen over his forehead. It's about the closest Moran ever sees him to being disorganised, to losing control and composure, and it's an intoxicating sight.

As Moriarty closes his hand around both of their pricks together, he is thinking much the same thing. Moran gasps and his head tips back slightly as he bucks up against the Professor.

“You look so beautiful when you lose control like this,” Moriarty says, and means it. There is something endlessly fascinating about seeing Moran so aroused, so desperate, almost helpless with want and need beneath him, with his actions drawing those beautiful cries and whimpers of pleasure out of Moran's bared throat. Not a man who customarily has the slightest interest in sex, still with the Colonel, Moriarty thinks he could never get bored of this. Perhaps there is still something detached and clinical almost in the way in which he regards sexual intimacy, even in the manner he regards Moran, but he is truly fascinated by it, and Moran's reactions reveal every time that he cares not at all that Moriarty's nature is somewhat different to that of his other past partners.

Moran's thighs are wrapped around the Professor's sides and his long fingers curl in the sheepskin rug as the Professor continues to stroke them, his actions stronger and more assertive again now he is in this position. When Moriarty inclines his head to kiss Moran's mouth, Moran groans into his mouth again as the Professor continues to stroke his length.

“James,” he says. “James, I'm gonna...” He comes hard, his prick spurting between them, before his head falls back, his throat bared once more.

Moriarty looks down at him, at that stretch of skin where Moran's pulse races in that point just beneath his jaw. The Colonel's vulnerability, his incredible trust in the Professor, the way too in which he calls Moriarty _James_ , there is something achingly sweet about all of that. Such intimacy between them, it's still so new to Moriarty; new even to Moran really, despite all his past sexual encounters. Moriarty has rapidly come to realise, intimacy is not just kissing, not just putting one's private parts together one way or another. Sometimes intimacy is the utterance of a name, a confession, a whisper in the dark. It's the way Moriarty's strong smooth hands trace the scars on Moran's skin and the way Moran touches Moriarty and Moriarty does not flinch in response. It's the way in which they speak, sometimes, but then at other times do not need to. It's the way too Moran looks at him in times like this, with such devotion. Once Moriarty believed he could not find pleasure in such things; that to be close to someone in this way and have them care for him so would be an irritation. He was wrong, which is a relatively rare thing for him anyway. Rarer still though is the fact that he is actually glad that he was wrong.

Moran looks up at him again a second or two later, regaining enough of his composure to close his fingers around the Professor's, covering Moriarty's hand with his and closing it around Moriarty's prick, stroking him together until at last the Professor reaches his climax also, his release spilling over Moran's stomach. He collapses atop him a moment later, drained by the physical exertion.

“James,” Moran murmurs softly, lying beneath him, stroking his fingertips down the back of the Professor's neck, down his back. He smiles, completely unconcerned for now about moving anywhere, about having to clean up and prepare for dinner. All that matters right now is that he is with his Professor, beneath him. “You all right?” he asks after a time, when Moriarty's breathing has slowed.

“Mm.” Moriarty rolls off him, shifting to lie beside Moran on the rug.

Moran glances over into the fire. The warmth of it, the flickering flames, the crackle of them, there is something almost hypnotic about that. He could quite contentedly lie here for hours.

“Moran.” Moriarty touches Moran's bare shoulder with two fingertips, a light touch to bring him out of his reverie.

“Mm?”

“Seeing you on that horse, Foxtrot,” Moriarty says. “For a moment or two I was concerned”

“I was fine,” Moran says swiftly. He is not sure he is quite ready for confessions of this nature from the Professor, ones which suggest far more than they state outright. Moriarty is not a man who customarily admits to being afraid of anything. This then, it is huge, it is enormous, and Moran does not know quite what to do with it.

“Horses are dangerous.”

Moran shrugs a freckled shoulder. “Lots of things are dangerous. Most of those don't seem to bother you.”

True enough, Moriarty supposes. Sending Moran out to complete certain tasks for him, that is dangerous work, in its own way. Perhaps most of those jobs are not immediately harmful to Moran's health or well-being, but were Moran to be caught and arrested he could well be hanged for murder, yet that fact has never overly troubled the Professor much. Perhaps though the difference is in those situations he believes he could save Moran from the death penalty, should the need ever arise. When Moran sits upon a high-spirited animal such as Foxtrot however, that is something largely beyond Moriarty's control.

“It's not the same though, is it,” he says after a pause. “In a split second you could be thrown off a horse, have your skull caved in or your neck snapped, and there would be _nothing I could do about it_.”

Moran stares at him for a second, surprised by the sudden surge of emotion that has infused the Professor's voice. Even when angered the Professor usually speaks softly. “Sir,” he says. “Professor.” He puts his hand on Moriarty's arm and Moriarty looks back at him, his eyes seeming strangely dark in the firelight.

“I don't know what it is about you precisely, Sebastian,” the Professor says, his voice softer again. “But around you, I feel things I have not felt before.”

Moran ponders this statement for a moment. “What exactly are we talking about here, Professor?” he asks.

“Terror,” Moriarty says, and laughs. “Sheer bloody terror, that some harm might befall you.” And nothing has prepared him for this. All the talk he has heard of _romance_ makes it sounds as if it is all sweet and good and joyful yet here he is, in a relationship with Moran which he supposes must qualify in at least some roundabout manner as romantic, and he is afraid – afraid of losing Moran. Of course there is an element of the fear of losing Moran to another, a loss that is less physical and more emotional. Seeing Jamie's interest in him reminded the Professor of that fear, that Moran is someone who has had strings of past lovers, male and female, and is still seemingly considered to be immensely desirable. Add that to the fact that Moran is clearly far more of a romantic than he is, and Moriarty is afraid of Moran one day losing interest in him. Compared to the idea of some serious physical harm befalling Moran though, that is a mere triviality. From the start he has protected Moran in some ways, but the closer they become the more he is coming to realise that sometimes he is not always going to be able to protect him.

“Don't worry about me, I've got the luck of the devil, me.” Moran smiles again. They used to say that of him, in India and in Afghanistan – that this man had the devil's own luck; that there could be no other explanation for how he had so often dodged bullets and bombs, or the raking claws and sharp teeth of tigers. Truly, he thinks, some people believed that he must have sold his soul to the devil or to some demon. He had not, of course, not then, though perhaps he has now.

“Anyway, what are you gonna do?” he asks. “Forbid me from riding ever again?”

“Of course not,” Moriarty scoffs, for his desire to control Moran certainly does not extend that far, to trying to dictate what Moran is and is not allowed to do.

“Well you needn't worry about me riding Foxtrot again. She'll be dead soon.” Moran tries to keep his voice flat, his tone neutral. Don't give away what anything means to you, that used to be one of the rules he tried to live by, but it is the Professor he is lying beside, and it is hard to keep anything from him.

Moriarty can hear the hurt in Moran's voice, no matter how well disguised it is. “Perhaps,” he says quietly.

Moran does remind him of a horse sometimes, particularly when he shows his vulnerable side to Moriarty. The Professor recalls blindfolding and tying Moran up for the first time during one of their games. Moran consented, truly, without coercion, but he felt as strung up as a racehorse before the off, every sinew and nerve straining. The Professor understands that horses have a blind spot in front of them and another directly behind; that they cannot see anything there, so to avoid spooking them when moving around them one must talk softly to them, perhaps also run one's hand over them as one moves. It was like that with Moran. Blinded, his wrists tied to the bed, Moran was as nervous and flighty as a barely tamed horse. Moriarty could feel Moran's pulse and heartbeat racing. Only Moriarty's hand upon him and his voice steadily talking to him all the while seemed to stop him descending into panic and lashing out as a horse may kick out when frightened. He is afraid of helplessness; of being trapped and vulnerable, unable to see, unable to move. Moriarty knows this without really knowing its cause, although likely this specific fear was probably yet another gift bestowed upon Moran by his father.

Trust me, he had said to Moran out in the garden, and Moran does, and he did then, even when he was trembling with fear. Moriarty remembers Moran after he was shot, his fear then of being drugged even to relieve the pain, his terror of being rendered helpless in a different manner then, but how he calmed when the Professor stayed by his side. Even early on Moran trusted him, somehow.

“You know, I... feel the same,” Moran says after a minute or so of silence punctuated only by the crackling of the fire.

“The same how?”

“Afraid, sometimes. I want to keep you safe, Professor.” He has done right from the start, acting almost instinctively to save the Professor from his would-be assassin's bullet even. That was before he had even come to develop any real softer, deeper feelings for the man though, and then there had not been the time to be afraid, only time to react and bring down the man who would be Moriarty's murderer.

Moriarty gently fingers the scar on Moran's shoulder, the result of that bullet. It is far more raw and recent than most of the other scars on his body, some of which are almost invisible. “You already have done, pet,” he says. He still has that bullet, somewhat mangled but placed in a little glass jar back at their London house. He is not even sure really why he kept the thing, but it seemed significant somehow; a symbol of Moran's loyalty and devotion to him.

“I always want to protect you though,” Moran says. And it pains him, the thought that there may be times when he cannot protect the Professor from harm. Worse, that it may well be that Moriarty's greatest foe will be Moriarty himself. A man of the Professor's brilliance is prone to dark moods; to being seized with fits of melancholy and despair, and there are also times when it seems that despite him possessing a genius level intellect, he is somewhat lacking in common sense.

“You do not need to be my perpetual bodyguard, Moran.”

“You've got a nice body though, Professor.” Moran flashes him another lascivious grin. “I like protecting it.”

“You need not flatter me,” Moriarty scoffs.

“It _is_ nice though.”

Moriarty considers this momentarily. Lacking in muscle tone, developing a pot belly, his skin pallid, he is really not sure what exactly Moran considers to be so 'nice'. “All right,” he says. “Tell me which part of my body you like the best.” Fully expecting Moran to say something like _your prick_.

“Your hands.” Moran reaches down to gently grasp one of them, and Moriarty allows him to take it.

He supposes they are pleasing enough, strong, smooth save for the slight callouses from frequently holding a pencil or pen, his fingernails neatly trimmed and buffed, though he may never understand why Moran seems to be unable to take his eyes off them sometimes. Occasionally when the Professor is working Moran will watch him, watching his hand moving as he writes on the blackboard or on a paper. At first Moriarty had assumed Moran was simply imagining him doing something else far more _intimate_ with that hand. After a time though he has revised this opinion, deciding that Moran simply just likes his hands. Strange man.

“I like your prick too and all though.” Moran smirks slightly as he says this.

Moriarty raises his eyebrows and sighs slightly. “I almost dared to hope for a moment there that you might avoid being so _base_.”

“You like it when I am.” Moran says this with the absolute confidence of one who knows he is correct. “And you like to know too that even when I've seen so many of 'em, yours is the nicest one.”

Moriarty looks slightly surprised by this, and uncertain as to whether this is something he should be pleased about. He has seen other men besides Moran naked but usually in very different contexts and not ones where he ever felt it appropriate or even necessary to study their private parts or compare them to his own. Put bluntly, other men's parts did not interest him much more than women's ever have. “Is it?”

“Course it is.” Moran's smirk broadens. “Except for mine, obviously.”

Moriarty slaps him on the shoulder. “Seriously though,” he says after a few seconds, when Moran has lain back down, laughing to himself. “How do I compare to others?”

Moran stops laughing, realising the solemnity and uncertainty of the Professor's tone. “You mean...?”

“No not just _that_. Everything.” Moriarty waves a hand to encompass _everything_. “Do I satisfy you as others did, even when I have so little experience?”

“Not everyone I've been with was experienced,” Moran points out. He didn't exactly try to make a habit of _defiling virgins,_ it is just that lots of people were drawn to him and there were plenty of times when those who had never been with anyone before offered themselves to him for him to _defile_.

“No but many were.”

“I s'pose.” Moran scratches at his beard momentarily as he thinks this over. He cannot deny that he has had plenty of amazing and intense sexual encounters before he met Moriarty. There were many mediocre ones too of course, and some that were downright disastrous, but lots that were very good. But it's different with the Professor, despite the man's lack of experience, despite him needing to be guided sometimes, and not just because of the Professor's attraction, or lack of, towards him being different to most of those other people. There are still times – frequently – when Moran cannot help but wonder why the Professor would choose to lie with him when he evidently does not desire Moran in the same way that Moran desires him. Stemming from that, there are times when he wonders then is he not taking advantage of the Professor in some way, or coercing him into acts he doesn't really want?

But Moriarty is not a man who can be easily coerced into anything, Moran knows this. Moreover, while this fact is not immutable, the Professor is the dominant force in their relationship, both professionally and privately. Moran knows, really, that they are only having such a physical relationship because Moriarty chose it, as Moriarty chooses so much about their lives – where they live, where they travel to, what they do there, even down to the décor of their home. Moran knows that he cannot leave Moriarty's employment alive, ever, but he is not the Professor's prisoner or slave either, only perfectly content to let Moriarty take charge over him. So, whilst he still has his occasional doubts about whether the Professor truly wants such physical intimacy with him, on the whole Moran knows that Moriarty does and that he has chosen it of his own volition. There is something perhaps rather empowering about that, that despite Moriarty being attracted to nobody in the way in which Moran is attracted to, well, quite a few people, that he has still chosen to be physically and – to some extent at least – emotionally intimate with Moran.

The sex itself though is often different to with anyone else, even aside from that fact. Moran is a man who has faced down men who wanted to kill him and who pursued wounded and enraged man-eating tigers into the most inconvenient places, finding himself excited by such situations. But he is fearful of putting his back to anyone; he is scared of doctors and of being ill or injured. Being vulnerable, it terrifies him. Yet with the Professor he has been taken from behind enough times now to lose count. He has allowed Moriarty to subjugate and dominate him in the bedroom (well, _mostly_ in the bedroom) in a way he has permitted no other. This fact makes even the acts which he has done countless times before with other people far more intense and far more profound.

“Satisfy isn't really the right word, sir,” he says.

“Oh?”

“That makes it sound sort of... mediocre, when it's far beyond just 'satisfying' me. Just cos you don't have so much experience, what we do together is still...”

“What?”

“Bloody amazing.”

Moriarty laughs softly. “I suppose we should think about getting up and getting dressed for dinner,” he says at length.

“Mm,” Moran says, seemingly in agreement but not actually making any sign that he intends to move. “Couldn't we just... have some supper sent up for us?”

“No we cannot.” Moriarty finally stands up, stretching himself, trying to work out some of the stiffness in his muscles. As he turns slightly, Moran looks up at him appreciatively.

“I like your arse too, by the way,” he says. “That's very nice and all.”

“I am glad to know that.” Moriarty strolls back towards the bed, giving Moran a fine view of the body part under discussion. Many people might expect the Professor to be embarrassed by such talk, even to try to conceal himself as he moves, but far from hiding his _posterior_ he seems to be almost deliberately flaunting it. Indeed, he thinks, why shouldn't he, at least around Moran? “Now, get up.”

“Yes Professor.”


	9. Chapter 9

As they walk towards the dining hall, Jamie steps out of a room to their right, almost colliding with the Professor.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, trying to scurry away before the Professor can stop him, but his older brother puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait.” The Professor's touch is firm but still gentle, but even so Jamie can't quite help but flinch. Still though he stops and looks up timidly. “Oh don't look so frightened, Jamie,” the Professor chides. “I'm not angry with you. Besides, when have I ever harmed you?”

“Never,” Jamie admits. He doesn't really understand his middle brother at all – there is something very distant and remote about the Professor that Jamie cannot relate to. And even Jamie has wondered more than once if there is far more to the Professor than meets the eye; if he does not have a very dark side indeed. But it is true that the Professor has never hurt him nor treated him with cruelty; indeed he has always taken Jamie's side against their older brother and has protected him from harm on more than one occasion, regarding it he supposes as a sort of obligation he has.

“Well then,” he says. “Let us all be friends, hmm? You, me, Moran. I do not blame you for making advances towards him, nor do I believe you would have done so had you known of our relationship. So may we now please just put that behind us?”

“Yes.” Jamie looks from the Professor to Moran, standing behind Moriarty. “I'd like that, and I'd like us all to get along.” Walking over to Moran, he holds out his hand to him. “Friends?” he says.

Moran smiles and takes Jamie's hand. “Friends,” he says.

“Excellent,” Moriarty says. “Now may we all please go and eat. I don't know about you two but I have worked up quite an appetite.” He strides onwards towards the dining hall, leaving Moran and Jamie standing there. At the Professor's words Moran is not quite able to keep back the smallest smirk.

“Why, what have you been...?” Jamie's gaze drifts from the departing figure of his brother to Moran. “Oh,” he says, blushing slightly. “ _Oh_.”

Moran winks at him. “Don't tell your other brother.”

“No, of course not.”

“So, Jamie.” Moran slides an arm around the younger man's shoulders companionably. “Let's do as the Professor suggests and go to eat.”

-

Christmas Eve passes peacefully enough, and Christmas morning dawns in shades of grey, the sky hinting that perhaps there may be snow to come shortly. Moran's bedroom is empty. In Moriarty's bedroom meanwhile, Moran lies snuggled in the Professor's embrace, partly to keep warm, partly out of a simple desire for physical contact. As a steely light begins to seep into the room through the curtains which do not quite meet in the middle, Moran stirs, shifting, twisting around in the Professor's hold.

“Good morning,” Moriarty says. “And merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Professor.” Moran smiles sleepily. “Are we, uh, are we supposed to actually do anything yet? I mean, does your brother expect us to get up or anything?” He knows there is a decorated Christmas tree downstairs, but no presents have been stowed beneath it. All the gifts have been quietly handed over to their intended recipients, except for those for Mrs Moriarty which had been handed to her maid for safekeeping.

“He would rather we stay in our own rooms and open our gifts before we go down for breakfast,” Moriarty replies. “Perhaps to save everyone the embarrassment of having to pretend every present is marvellous.”

The Professor's gift to his elder brother is, Moran knows, a gold tie pin in the shape of a fox's head. If it was down to a matter of personal feelings then Moriarty would not have given Colonel Moriarty anything, but he felt it was far too impolite for them to arrive without bringing gifts. Moran, in the interests of trying to keep the peace between them for the duration of his stay, has gifted Colonel Moriarty a bottle of brandy, though he expects nothing in return from the man. For Moriarty's mother there is a beautifully enamelled jewellery box – an item which in fact Moran picked out – and a selection of artfully presented scented soaps, and for Jamie a gold pen, along with a scarf which Moran knitted himself during one of his occasional bouts of insomnia.

His own presents for the Professor are carefully stowed in his travel bag, and he debates now whether he would like to brave the chill of the room to retrieve them. It is pleasingly warm under the covers, lying still pressed against Moriarty's side. But then Moriarty sits up, leaning over to light the bedside lamp and then to retrieve his two gifts for Moran from the bag placed beside the bed, so Moran decides he should probably make a dash for it. On bare feet he jumps from the bed, darts across the room, grabs his own two neatly wrapped gifts and practically hurls himself back into the bed.

“Must you be quite so energetic?” Moriarty enquires.

“Didn't want to freeze my arse off, or my toes.”

“I told you last night to put socks on.”

“I don't like wearing socks in bed, makes me feel too constrained.” In fact it's unusual for Moran to be wearing anything at all in bed. Even in midwinter and despite keenly feeling the cold he seems to prefer sleeping naked, but Moriarty was firm on this. While they are in Colonel Moriarty's house he must at least wear a nightshirt in bed.

“So you would prefer to lose all feeling in your feet instead?” Moriarty smiles as he places one particular wrapped package before Moran. “Here. You had best open this one first.”

Moran looks at him, then at the gift, narrowing his eyes as he considers how it feels. It is something soft, so he has his suspicions immediately about the contents. He undoes the ribbon and unwraps the paper to find inside... a pair of bedsocks. “Thank you, Professor,” he says, laughing. “Just what I always wanted.”

“Now you have no excuse not to put any on.” Moriarty smirks slightly.

“Here, you open one of yours now.” Setting the socks aside, Moran places one of his gifts in front of Moriarty. He looks almost shy as the Professor takes it and begins to unwrap it. “I know they ain't fancy...”

Inside the paper, Moriarty finds a pair of gloves, knitted from dark grey wool. Evidently Moran has made them himself. They do look well made and beautifully warm, but Moriarty is more accustomed to wearing far more elegant leather gloves, hence the Colonel's sudden shyness.

“Your hands just get so cold sometimes,” Moran says. He can recall a couple of occasions where the Professor touched him in a most intimate way and Moran had practically shot a foot into the air at the coldness of his hands. “I thought they'd be practical when you don't need to dress up all fancy at least.”

“Thank you, Sebastian. They are a very thoughtful gift, and I will wear them if you will wear your bedsocks,” Moriarty says, smiling. “Deal?”

“Deal. In fact I'll start now.” With exaggerated theatricality, Moran throws back the bed-covers and puts on his socks. “There, nice and warm.” He wiggles his toes inside the socks, laughing again.

“Now open this one.” Moriarty passes him another package as Moran draws the bed-covers back over himself.

Moran pulls undone the ribbon and tears off the paper to find a leather tobacco pouch, with spaces inside for both the tobacco itself and his cigarette papers. “Thank you, Professor, it's lovely,” he says, genuinely grateful and a little bit surprised also that Moriarty noticed his current tobacco pouch is on the brink of disintegrating. This one is much nicer than that old thing was even when new, clearly made of much better quality leather and with his initials stitched onto it as well. Leaning across, he presses a kiss to the Professor's cheek. Perhaps it is just the dim light playing tricks, but he could swear that Moriarty blushes slightly in response. “Now this one.” Moran passes his second gift to the Professor, thinking as he does that it seems they have both been thinking along the same lines with their choice of gifts.

Moriarty unwraps his second present slowly, finding within a silver cigarette case.

“I know you don't smoke much,” Moran says. Actually most of the occasions when he has seen Moriarty smoke cigarettes have simply been a way for him to start a conversation or ingratiate himself with someone upon whom he has set his sights for some reason or other. “But when you do, I thought you should have something nice to keep 'em in. Also... I had it engraved inside, see?” He still wonders even as the Professor opens it if that touch was too much, something he should have saved for a later stage of their relationship maybe. It is far too late to undo it now though. At least it's on the inside where most other people will never see it anyway.

“ _'To the best and brightest man I know'_ ,” Moriarty reads.

“I'm sorry, it's a bit... sentimental.” Now Moran is the one who blushes, his cheeks colouring noticeably.

“Is that truly what you think?” Moriarty asks. "I mean, the engraving."

“Well, I...”

“Moran.” Moriarty puts his hand beneath Moran's chin, gently turning Moran's face towards his own. “Is it?”

“Yes, sir. I do. I've never met anyone like you, and since I did meet you... you changed my life.”

“For the better, I hope?”

“Of course.” Moran flashes him a brief, slightly uncertain smile. “I'm not saying I was about to off myself before I met you, but you... you made my life actually worth living again.”

“I am glad of that, truly.” Moriarty smiles too as he presses a kiss to Moran's lips. It is still chaste, but sweet, and Moran definitely flushes with pleasure in response to it. “And thank you, Sebastian." Moriarty pauses a moment. "I suppose we had best open our other gifts.” he says finally, leaning over and retrieving several other small wrapped packages from his bag. “You have something from both of my brothers by the way.”

“I do?”

“James is simply playing the courteous host no doubt, but I believe Jamie actually likes you.” Moriarty hands two packages over to Moran. One is small and rectangular, very neatly and precisely wrapped, rather impersonal in appearance, with Moran's name written on it and nothing more. The other is far less neat, far greater in length, and has 'To Colonel Sebastian Moran, Season's Greetings, Jamie Moriarty' scrawled on it.

Moran blushes slightly again, remembering Jamie's rather clumsy advances towards him. “Still, bit odd that he'd give me anything when he barely knows me.”

“He likes to be kind to people,” Moriarty remarks.

“You consider that a weakness?” Moran asks.

“Not always.”

Moran looks at the Professor, trying to read him and to understand what he means by this.

“Sometimes being kind has its benefits,” Moriarty says. “Gaining a man's loyalty, gaining his trust.” He grins. “Often just before dealing him the killing blow.”

“Oh, is that why you've been kind to me then?” Moran says, laughing.

“You are more likely to mistrust someone who is kind to you, my dear Sebastian,” Moriarty points out, for Moran is the kind of man who suspects an ulterior motive, particularly after being so mistreated by others in the past. “I have sought to gain and to foster your loyalty to me, of course, for I could never have you being disloyal to me,” he says after a moment. There is a veiled threat in his words, of a sort – even Moran would not be immune from Moriarty's wrath should he ever betray the Professor; both of them know this, that Moran can never leave Moriarty's employment save through death. Both of them also believe however that Moran would not betray Moriarty, therefore this threat is irrelevant. When Moriarty speaks of such things from time to time then he does so without menace and never with the intention to intimidate Moran. In fact he suspects that Moran actually likes to be reminded of the power the Professor holds over him. The Colonel's nature is such that he thrives on having such a guiding and controlling hand, so long as he is also treated with kindness. “To begin with perhaps that was my primary motive for treating you with kindness and respect,” Moriarty says. “But later...” He trails off, leaving Moran to fill in the gap. “Open the rest of your gifts,” he says hurriedly, before Moran can dwell too much on the Professor's meaning. “I am curious to know what my brothers decided to give to you.”

“I'm fairly sure I can guess what Jamie's is,” Moran says, for the long package would definitely seem to have more than a suggestion of umbrella about its shape. He unwraps the package from Colonel Moriarty first, and he laughs. It's a bar of shaving soap. “Well,” he says, running his hand over his beard – the beard that he has become very attached to and has no intention of removing, “I suppose it _might_ come in useful, one day.”

“He probably picked up the first thing that came to hand to give to you,” Moriarty remarks. He too seems amused by his brother's somewhat inappropriate choice of gift.

“Maybe I can gift it to someone else next Christmas.” Moran is still laughing as he unwraps the gift from Jamie. As expected, it's an umbrella, one with a horn handle. Not of the finest quality but certainly not the cheapest one in existence either.

“An apt choice of present in this climate,” Moriarty remarks. And especially fitting for Moran, who does not already own an umbrella and has an annoying habit of going about in the rain with water dripping off the brim of his hat and then complaining about it running down the back of his neck. The only times Moriarty has known him to carry one, it has been the one usually kept in the stand in the hallway and he has held it between them because he wishes to keep the Professor dry. He will probably still refuse to actually use this one much though, because he dislikes being encumbered by too many items, preferring to keep his hands free. Moriarty suspects that Moran still has the thought in his head that he needs to be able to pull a gun on any would-be assassins within a split second, even when he isn't actually carrying one.

“Are you gonna open your presents from your brothers then?” Moran asks.

“If I must.” Moriarty unwraps the gift from Colonel Moriarty first. Holding it up on his hand, he regards it for a moment in silence. It is an embroidered and tasselled smoking cap – perhaps not the most fitting gift for a man who so rarely does smoke, and Moriarty has always thought the things rather ridiculous looking anyway.

“Well,” Moran says, “I reckon it might suit you. Try it on.”

Moriarty glares at him, but obliges anyway to humour him.

Moran laughs as he reaches up to flick at the tassel. “I reckon it has a certain appeal.”

“I should burn the thing.”

“No, no, it makes you look very...” Moran struggles to keep a straight face. “Distinguished.”

Moriarty pulls the thing off and tosses it onto the bed. He picks up his final gift, the one from Jamie. He expects that Jamie has probably put a great deal more thought into his present than Colonel Moriarty did, but that it will be something rather overly sentimental. Moriarty possesses several books of poetry, the appeal of which he cannot understand, thanks to his youngest brother. This gift is rectangular in shape, fairly big, but thin. Probably not another book of poetry, thank goodness. Pulling off its paper wrapping, Moriarty finds inside the actual gift is sandwiched between two pieces of board. Removing these finally reveals the present itself. It is a print of a rock pigeon, in a simple gold frame, which surprises the Professor a little. He wasn't aware Jamie had ever noticed his fondness for the birds.

“It's nice,” Moran says, leaning over to peer at it. “I mean, if you like that sort of thing.” Which he doesn't – birds with their beady eyes and flapping wings and clawed feet rather unnerve him – but he knows that the Professor does, and the picture itself seems to be very nicely done.

“A surprisingly appropriate gift from my youngest brother, for once.”

"You don't have to sound so disparaging, I know you care for him really.” Moran lies back against the pillows again.

“Do you indeed,” Moriarty says, laying the print down onto his lap and glancing towards his lover.

“Yeah.” Moran folds his arms behind his head and looks across at the Professor. “I reckon you'd like me to think you hate him, but I can tell, you do like 'im.” He gives Moriarty one of those infuriating grins that almost makes Moriarty want to slap him just to wipe it away.

What liberties Moran takes, he thinks. No one else ever challenges him the way Moran challenges him; nobody else answers him back or disputes the things he says or does or tells him when he believes Moriarty is wrong about something. No one else has ever turned everything that the Professor believed to be true on its head the way Moran has. Moran knows Moriarty's true nature, better than anyone else, and yet he still does these things. How refreshing this is, to have someone in his life who behaves so. Moriarty both expects and demands loyalty and obedience from Moran, but that does not mean he wants some mindless lackey who always acquiesces demurely and is too frightened to stand up to him even when he believes Moriarty has made an error. He may be occasionally rather irritating when he does so, but the Professor realises, he would not change this about the Colonel.

“I have a certain amount of fondness for him,” he concedes.

Moran's smile perfectly conveys his belief that this is a huge understatement, but also his amusement at the Professor's refusal to admit to anything more. Reaching down, he picks up Moriarty's smoking cap and places it on his own head, tilting it at an angle. “Does it suit me?”

“You look ridiculous,” Moriarty replies. He carefully picks up his framed print and places it gently down the side of the bed out of the way. “We had best get up and go for breakfast.”

“I know you're just jealous cos it looks better on me,” Moran says with a grin.

Moriarty turns away, trying not to let the Colonel see the look of amusement on his face. “If you say so,” he says.


	10. Chapter 10

Having eventually got out of bed, washed and dressed, Moriarty and Moran arrive downstairs to find Jamie standing in the hallway, Ollie running around his feet. He has the scarf that Moran knitted for him wrapped around his neck.

“Ah James, and Moran, a merry Christmas to you both,” he says, beaming.

“Merry Christmas to you, brother,” the Professor says with great solemnity. “You are wearing your new scarf I see. Did you know that Moran made that himself?”

“Did he?” Jamie looks at Moran as if suddenly seeing him in a whole new light, which he probably is, for Moran doesn't exactly seem the type to enjoy knitting. “That was most kind of you, thank you very much.”

Moran, not quite sure he likes being the focus of attention for such a reason, blushes slightly and looks down at his feet. “You're welcome,” he mumbles. “And thank you very much for my umbrella. With the British climate the way it is I'm sure I'll be needing to make use of it very soon.”

“No doubt.” Jamie chuckles and moves to slap the Professor lightly on the arm. “Thank you to you for my pen. I will be sure to make good use of it.” Writing terrible poetry, no doubt, thinks the Professor. “Did you like your present, brother?”

Moran looks at the Professor, a subtle glance but one which clearly conveys the message, _be kind to him_.

“The artwork is exquisite, and it is a most thoughtful and lovely gift, thank you,” Moriarty says.

“I remember you feeding the pigeons when we were boys. We were never allowed pets then, you know,” Jamie tells Moran. “James here though seemed terribly fond of the local pigeons.”

“I'm surprised you remember,” Moriarty says. “You were very young.”

“I remember it because it further proved to me, you were not the person many thought you were,” Jamie tells him. “Others thought you were a strange, cold boy, incapable of any warmer feelings, but that was not how I saw you. The side I saw of you was always kind.”

The Professor regards his brother strangely, as if this revelation is new to him, and he almost seems to colour slightly at Jamie's words. In fact it has never occurred to him before that Jamie has so many positive feelings towards him. “Yes, well...” He clears his throat but still finds himself at a loss for what to say next.

Mercifully Jamie cuts in here. “Well I'm going to take Ollie for a walk,” he says. “I expect you're heading to breakfast?”

“Yes. You've already had yours?” Moriarty asks.

“Just a light one. One must leave room for plenty of roast goose and plum pudding, of course.” Jamie grins.

“Of course.” The Professor smiles and somewhat awkwardly, slightly stiffly, pats his youngest brother on the shoulder. “Well, I hope you and, er, Ollie enjoy your walk. Meanwhile we shall go and have our breakfast. Come, Moran.”

“Come Ollie!” Jamie calls, striding away with the dog trotting alongside him.

Moran darts after the Professor. “God, he adores you,” he says.

“I suppose so.”

“You've never noticed before, have you? That he practically hero-worships you?”

“No,” Moriarty admits. “I had not.” Apparently having Moran around as his close companion is proving to bring about many more surprises than Moriarty had ever thought possible. As they continue towards the dining room though he notes the brief look of sadness that flickers across Moran's face. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Come, Moran, you are learning all of my deepest darkest secrets.”

“What, that you and your younger brother actually like each other?” Moran scoffs. “Yes, truly a dark secret.”

“Well you can still tell me what vexes you.”

“It's nothing, really. Just.” Moran pauses, standing in the corridor slightly hunched up, looking down at the floor. “I never had that. A little brother, or sister. Not really.”

And Moriarty remembers how, while looking into the past of his prospective employee, he had learned that out of the legitimate Moran children, Sebastian is the only one to survive to adulthood, much to the chagrin of his father. There had been a little sister, but only briefly. Moriarty has never wondered before how that might have affected Moran, to lose his baby sister in addition to his mother, but that Moran has never talked about such matters even to him suggests that it is a topic he wishes never to speak on. Many would assume this showed utter indifference towards his sibling, which would hardly be unusual in this time when, even when great strides are being made in science and medicine all the time, still infant mortality is common. Moriarty realises now however that it suggests something else entirely.

Moran would have made a wonderful big brother, he thinks.

-

Colonel Moriarty is still at the dining table, although aside from a cursory greeting and muttered thanks for the gifts passing between them, he largely ignores his brother and his brother's companion, and the Professor and Moran are perfectly happy to ignore him in turn. A maid by the name of Perkins – apparently the niece of the groom by the same name, if the Professor's memory is correct – brings them breakfast. She seems to spend far more time attending to Moran than she does to the Professor, fussing over him, bringing him a new knife when the one laid out proves to have a mark on it, asking him repeatedly if there is anything more he wishes for. Moran accepts her attentions with a smile and the Professor, watching him from across the table, wonders if, under different circumstances, Moran would have bedded her. Perhaps so, he decides. The thought is not sufficient to dampen his good spirits, but it does momentarily put a furrow in his brow as he considers this.

After breakfast he takes himself off for a walk, declining Moran's company, an act which seemed to perplex the Colonel.

“Is this because of the maid?” he asked. “I weren't leading her on or anything, just being kind. I doubt she gets much kindness from your brother.”

“It is nothing to do with the maid, we simply need not spend every single moment together,” Moriarty replied, which was completely true, and he had things he wished to think through also. “Go and read a book or something.”

“Right sir.”

There is little in the house, either literature or anything else, to interest the Colonel though. Within a few minutes of Moriarty vanishing he is bored and although he is content to spend time alone when he is at home, here he feels adrift without Moriarty. He is searching for the Professor then, wondering if he has come back yet from wherever he wandered off to, when he looks into the drawing room.

“You!” Mrs Moriarty calls to him abruptly before he can duck out again. “Come here.” She has been seated behind the piano, though its lid is closed, and now she rises and darts across towards Moran.

Obediently he walks towards her.

“What was your name again?” she asks.

“Sebastian Moran, ma'am,” he replies.

“Oh 'ma'am', do not call me that, I beg you. It makes me sound like some a hundred year old spinster.”

“All right, uh, Mrs Moriarty.” Suddenly he feels as if he is about eight years old, being regarded by the mother of one of his school acquaintances, and found lacking.

She stands before him in a long green dress, scrutinising him intently. “Interesting bone structure,” she remarks, gripping his chin, turning his face to the side. He might have thought the same about her; her face is oddly gaunt, revealing high cheekbones. “You and my son,” she says, whilst still gripping him firmly by the chin. She has numerous gold and jewelled rings upon her fingers. “You are buggering him?”

Moran's gaze darts up to meet hers. He is thinking it would be rude, not to mention unforgivable, to hit her to break free, but her long fingernails and some of the rings are rather digging into his face, and he feels terribly trapped – never a good feeling for a man like him. He is so disconcerted by that then that it takes him a second to register her question.

“Oh come now, we are both adults here,” she says, taking in his slightly terrified expression. “And I know what my sons think of me, that I am dotty as a dodo, but I am still not entirely oblivious to what goes on amongst them. Are you buggering James?” She seems to ponder this for a second or two however, before adding. “The Professor, I mean. Not... the other ones.” She releases her grip on his face, although retains a grasp on his forearm.

“I suppose... uh.... in some manner of speaking. Although, uh...” Moran rubs his chin, trying to rub away the lingering effects of her grasp on him.

Finally she relinquishes her hold on him entirely and she glides back towards the piano, her dress trailing across the floor as she moves. “You look shocked by my candour, Mr Moran. May I call you Sebastian?”

“Yes, if you wish.”

“Sebastian then.” Adjusting her skirts around her, she sits down upon the piano stool again and picks up a glass that she has left on top of the piano, taking a sip from it. “Believe me, Sebastian, after all those years spent with my husband, I feel that there is little that can shock me any more. To learn that not merely one but two of my sons prefer the attentions of their own sex is hardly a surprise.” She drains the glass before holding it out towards Moran. “Would you mind...?” She gestures towards a crystal decanter on the sideboard.

“Of course.” He walks towards her, takes the glass from her and carries it over to the sideboard. The decanter has no label on it but he thinks it's probably sherry as he fills her glass for her.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” she says as he returns the glass to her. “Come, sit beside me.” Taking another sip from her sherry, she pats the space on the piano stool beside her.

This is the last thing he would like to do, but when she is in one of her more lucid periods, as she appears to be in now, she is a difficult woman to turn down. He sits.

“Do you play, Sebastian?” she asks as she opens the lid of the piano.

“No, I... That is...” He finds her looking at him very intently again, as if she is peering into his soul. That must be where the Professor gets that ability from then. “I haven't for many years.”

“You used to then. Perhaps it will all come back to you.” Still holding the sherry glass in one hand, she presses one be-ringed finger down on one of the keys.

The piano is still in dire need of tuning, but Moran, looking down at the keys now, remembers, when he was a boy, looking down at a piano much like this one, placing his fingers upon the keys, playing. Suddenly he finds himself with his hands hovering above the keys, unwittingly playing a few notes if only in his head, not quite daring to press his fingers down on the keys.

“You think me an old fool,” Mrs Moriarty remarks.

Moran snatches his hands back and puts them in his lap. “No ma-Mrs Moriarty, I don't.” And he doesn't, not really. Maybe her mind has been addled by too much sherry and whatever else she has consumed over the years, but he thinks she is probably still a most astute woman, far sharper than her eldest and youngest sons at least.

“My husband was a weak man, Sebastian.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“I don't say that to be unkind, but he was. Nor do I claim that he mistreated me, or his sons, for he did not, not really. At least, he did not raise a hand to me, ever, nor to our boys. But he could never stand up to anyone. I took other lovers, you know.” She glances at him, smiling coyly, and for a second or two he has the horrible feeling that she is about to make advances towards him. “I think you suspected as much already.”

He narrows his eyes, confused, before he realises to what she refers. “Jamie?” Because Jamie, while he has a few similarities of appearance with the Professor and Colonel Moriarty, does look very different to them in other ways.

“Yes,” she says, with an enigmatic smile. “My husband had his suspicions also, but he was too weak to ever confront me about them.”

Moran is not exactly sure he would count this as a weakness, rather the behaviour of a man who either simply wished to keep the peace or else did not care in the slightest. He also doesn't understand really what Mrs Moriarty would have preferred, that her husband scream accusations of infidelity at her? That he hit her? But he says nothing. It is not really an avenue he wishes to explore right now.

“I confuse you,” she remarks. “Don't mistake my meaning, Sebastian; I had no desire for a violent confrontation with him; certainly no desire either that he would take his suspicions out somehow on Jamie himself. But I would have liked to know that he cared enough about me to be angry at what he believed to be my breaking of the marital vows. I did not ask that he love me, just that he showed me _something_. Do we not all, deep down, want to be cared for, Sebastian?”

“I suppose so, Mrs Moriarty.”

“Do you care for James?”

“I do.”

“Does he care for you?”

“I believe so.”

“I didn't think he was the type, but how delightful for him to prove me wrong.” She picks up her sherry glass and stands up. “No, stay, play something!” she cries, as Moran moves to stand up also.

“But I haven't... It's been so long.” Moran is even more thoroughly bemused by now. Does this woman, the mother of the man he supposes he could call his lover, approve of their relationship? Does she approve of _him_? He really wishes Moriarty was here to help him work it out, but then perhaps the Professor himself understands his own mother little better.

“You must remember how to do it, even if you don't know that you do.” Mrs Moriarty is still watching him intently, a sly smile playing over her thin lips. There is something very harsh about her appearance, even though she wears a dress of a colour many would deem to be inappropriate for an ageing widow; even though her fingers and throat glitter with jewellery. The Professor often dresses in black, only rarely adding any colour to his ensemble, and slicks down his hair, but even he seems less forbidding than his mother.

Moran finds himself thinking of how unlike his own mother she is; that even had his mother lived and grown old, she could never have looked as severe as Mrs Moriarty does. He shifts position slightly on the stool; numbly he puts his hands over the keys, struggling to remember how to play anything, for it really has been such a long time. Perhaps it might be somewhat easier if Mrs Moriarty had given him something to play, but she appears to use no sheet music, preferring to play whatever random notes or snatches of tunes come into her head.

Even as he puts his fingers to the keys he has no idea what is going to come out, until it does – rather awkwardly, for the piano really is badly out of tune. _Winterreise_.

Mrs Moriarty tilts her head onto one side slightly, considering the tune. “I don't think I know this,” she says, taking another drink of sherry.

The door opens and the Professor steps into the room, his gaze meeting Moran's first before his mother's. Moran stops playing at once.

“Schubert, Mother,” Moriarty says.

“Oh,” she says in a tone which implies he has just said something obscene. “ _Him_.”

“You did not need to stop.” Moriarty walks softly over towards the piano and stands over Moran, resting a hand on his shoulder. The gesture appears thoughtless, casual, yet perfectly conveys his domination, his sense of ownership even, over Moran. But even his control over the Colonel is not sufficient to persuade Moran to play any more.

“I'm too far out of practice,” he says.

“You still play beautifully.”

Moran firmly closes the piano lid. “I had an excellent tutor,” is all that he says further on the matter. The tightening of his jaw and the way in which his glance slides away from the Professor's tells Moriarty that this is a sore point with him and a matter which must not be pushed, and certainly not in front of a woman who is barely more than a stranger to him.

Moriarty looks across at his mother. “If you have finish toying with him, may I take Moran?”

Mrs Moriarty laughs. “I was hardly toying with him.” She walks towards Moriarty, shorter than him but still a tall and imperious woman. She puts the hand not holding the glass of sherry to his cheek. “James, dear boy, I know that it hardly matters to you what I think, but I give you my blessing.”

“For what, Mother?”

“For your _liaison_ with dear Sebastian here.”

Moriarty glances at Moran, who shrugs helplessly. “Thank you, Mother,” Moriarty says. “May I take him now?”

“Yes, yes, you take him away and do whatever it is you youngsters do.” Mrs Moriarty holds out her hand to her son, who kisses it almost reverentially, before she waves them both away.

“Come, _dear Sebastian_ ,” Moriarty hisses, passing his arm through Moran's and practically marching him from the room.

“I didn't tell 'er, she already worked it out.”

“Yes. She does do that sometimes.”

“Aren't you glad, that you have her approval?”

“I don't need her approval.” Moriarty pulls Moran to a halt before pushing him through another doorway. They find themselves in the billiards room, alone.

“No, of course you don't,” Moran says, with a somewhat cold edge to his voice.

“You believe I should care what she thinks?”

“No, I don't mean that, I just...” Moran runs his hand back over his hair. “I think that... if my mother was still alive, I would be greatly moved to have her blessing.”

Moriarty's gaze softens as he regards the Colonel. “Sebastian,” he says, sliding his arms around Moran's upper body, drawing him close. “Your mother adored you. My mother however could not even be bothered to give me and my brothers different names. Neither of my parents ever truly wanted children, thus my mother's approval means little to me. If your mother still lived though, I would be glad to have _her_ approval.” He nudges Moran backwards against the billiards table until Moran hops up to perch on its edge. Moriarty takes both of Moran's hands in his.

“I wish...” Moran begins, then pauses.

“What?”

“That you could've met her.”

Moriarty, squeezing Moran's hands gently, wonders momentarily how things might have been had he met Moran years earlier. Might he have been able to save the Colonel from at least the worst of his father's abuse? Might he not even have been able to save Moran's beloved mother? For he knows Moran entirely blames his father for her early demise, probably with a great deal of justification.

But things have turned out the way they have and it is far too late to change anything. All he can do now is his best to look after Moran. “I would have liked that,” he says, stroking his thumb across the back of Moran's hand for a moment, whilst Moran idly swings his legs a little. “Why don't we take a brisk walk, hmm?” Moriarty asks at last. “Build up a good appetite for that goose later?”

“I thought you'd already been out walking?”

“I could stand to do a little more, in your company this time.”

“Yeah, all right.” Moran slides down off the table and is about to walk away when the Professor catches his hand again and tugs him back, into a kiss on the lips that is very brief, but still leaves Moran smiling.


	11. Chapter 11

By the time Christmas dinner is served there is quite a gathering in the house. Colonel Moriarty prefers to have his grand dinner when afternoon is on the brink of turning to evening. More guests arrive throughout the morning and early afternoon though, until eventually there are the three Moriarty brothers, their mother and her maid-cum-nurse, plus Moran, some distant Moriarty relation – a thin and nervous looking woman by the name of Miss Price - and then several friends of Colonel Moriarty – a Lord and Lady Fothergill, a ruddy faced and rather overweight man named Harold (“Call me Harry!”) Smythe, a Mr and Mrs Talbot, and a man with a very impressive set of muttonchop whiskers whose name is apparently Mr Terence, plus the servants of course.

Moran feels more and more out of place with every new arrival. With these new strangers around him his accent has unwittingly risen a few notches up the social ladder every time he speaks, so he is not getting the disparaging looks he is more used to when many people of any social standing hear him speak. But he is not comfortable here, and even less so when Lord and Lady Fothergill accost him just as they are entering the dining room.

“Sebastian Moran,” Lord Fothergill says, seeming to roll the name around his mouth, trying to bring to the fore whatever dim memory the name has stirred up. “I say, aren't you Augustus Moran's son?”

Moriarty turns, looking back at Moran, seeing him pale slightly and his hands clench unwittingly at the question.

“Yes,” Moran says practically through his teeth. “I am.”

“Ah old Gussie Moran.” Lord Fothergill laughs loudly.

Moran blinks. Never in his life has he heard anyone refer to his father as 'Gussie'. The man seems far too serious and too austere to ever have been known to anyone by anything but his full name or simply as 'sir'.

“So how is the old dog anyway?” Lord Fothergill asks.

“I wouldn't know,” Moran says, bowing his head. “We have not been on speaking terms for many years.” Although he suspects the old git is likely annoyingly healthy and still full of life.

“Ah, oh. Well...”

It is Colonel Moriarty who comes to Moran's aid here, albeit unintentionally.

“Come along now, everyone find their places, they're all marked,” he says, firmly steering his mother towards the long dining table before she can wander off.

It is beautifully laid out, though Colonel Moriarty himself has of course done none of the work. The table is covered with crisp white cloths, gold candlesticks with pale candles burning within, crystal wineglasses, heavy silver cutlery, thick napkins set into fan shapes, all of it interspersed with sprigs of holly and ivy, whilst in the corner of the room stands a Christmas tree bedecked with strings of glittering glass beads and shining baubles. Meanwhile each place at the table is marked with its intended occupant's name written on a card in a beautiful script, set on a small gold stand. Moran finds that he has been placed opposite Moriarty, mercifully with Jamie to his left and Miss Price to his right. He would have preferred to have been seated beside the Professor but Jamie is acceptable company and Miss Price doesn't seem the sort to try to make much conversation with him.

The Professor has been positioned with his mother to his right and Lady Fothergill to his left. Watching him across the table, Moran thinks that the Professor looks comfortable enough, at least on the surface. Look for the subtle signs however and one may see the slight tension of his jaw, the way that his smiles don't quite reach his eyes, or the way he shakes his head a little too much from side to side whenever he disagrees with some point being made by another. The Professor, Moran thinks, is no more comfortable in this environment than he is. He is merely much better at concealing that fact. A couple of times Lady Fothergill attempts to make conversation with Moran but does not manage to get very far. Finally she gives up and addresses Miss Price instead.

“I think you'd have been happier staying at home, wouldn't you?” Jamie remarks to Moran as the first course is being cleared away.

“I s'pose.”

“I am glad you came though,” Jamie tells him. “You and the Professor. Even with that little... embarrassment before, it has been a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Even though I rather made a fool of myself?” Jamie enquires.

“You must not take that to heart,” Moran says.

“I try not to.” Jamie smiles, rather sadly.

“Ah, here comes the goose!” Colonel Moriarty cries above everyone else's conversation as the huge bird is wheeled in on a trolley. He now makes his only real contribution to the festivities and proceeds to carve up the great bird, whilst the servants go around dishing out roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy.

“I say Colonel Moran, do you hunt?” Harry Smythe calls to Moran as the meat is being handed out, apparently having been in discussion with Mr and Mrs Talbot who are, it seems, both hunting fanatics.

“I hunted tigers in India,” Moran answers.

“But not foxes?” Smythe queries, as if that is the only animal that matters.

“Do they even have foxes in India?” Mrs Talbot muses aloud, although nobody seems to be interested in answering her.

“After hunting man-eating tigers I'm afraid I would find chasing after something as small and inconsequential as a fox rather too tame.” Moran flashes a smile across at Smythe and the Talbots, but it shows a little too much of his teeth. They do not try to make conversation with him after that.

The food is very good however, Moran will admit that. All of it is perfectly cooked and served at just the right temperature, though again that seems to have everything to do with the servants and not much to do with Colonel Moriarty. The plum pudding which comes later is also enormous in size and even Moran, who does not have so much of a sweet tooth as the Professor, willingly consumes a piece of it. Watching Moriarty, he sees that he too seems to be enjoying the food, having a second helping of the pudding.

When finally the meal is over it is expected that the ladies will retire to the drawing room whilst the gentlemen move into Colonel Moriarty's billiards room, although nobody so far has seemed much interested in playing the game and all simply stand about smoking and drinking.

Moran, Jamie and the Professor however manage to make their escape without drawing too much attention to themselves. Outside on the terrace, Moran quickly and deftly rolls a cigarette and smokes it hungrily. Moriarty stands beside him at the stone railings whilst Jamie sits on a bench behind them, Ollie lying at his feet.

“God, if I have to listen to any more fox-hunting anecdotes I'm going to lose my mind,” Moran says, blowing smoke into the cold night air. “Is that all they bloody talk about? Bloody foxes and hunters and hounds?”

“More or less,” Jamie says. “Mama used to say, in some of her more lucid moments, that unless he could ride it or kill it, James wasn't interested in it. Of course being interested in something and liking them are not necessarily the same thing. You know,” he muses, fiddling with a button on his coat. “I believe he regards women in much the same way.”

Moran glances back at Jamie, eyes narrowed slightly. “He wants to ride 'em or kill 'em?”

“I believe he does tend to eye women up in the same way he'd consider a hunter,” the Professor remarks. “Scrutinising their backsides and legs, seeing how much stamina they have.”

Jamie smiles, but there is a sadness behind that smile. “There was a girl, hanged herself because of him,” he says solemnly. “He broke her heart, made her false promises, that he'd marry her, make an honest woman of her, all that just so he could bed her. The rumours say that she was with child when she took her own life, but I suppose that part might be mere embellishment. This was when I was still a boy. He thinks I do not know about this but I know, and I will not forget, neither will James here, I think.” He glances up towards his brother.

The Professor nods.

“One might just about manage to write off his behaviour as the folly of youth, of course,” Jamie continues. “Except that even as a man he seems to think nothing of it. He judges us for what we are but even as barely more than a boy he drove a girl to her death and he seems to still think that does not matter. She _was_ only a serving girl, after all. How is he then better than us?” he says, his tone surprisingly fierce.

Moriarty thinks of the maid, the Miss Perkins who evidently is attracted to Moran. He glances at his lover, wondering which direction his thoughts have gone at Jamie's words.

Moran thinks of several women he has had encounters with in the past. He himself has not necessarily always treated women in a way that is entirely _proper_. It is not implausible either – birth control methods ranging from non-existent to of questionable reliability - that he has his own bastard children out there in various far flung parts of the world, his own odd and entirely unintentional contribution to Great Britain's attempt to colonise much of the planet perhaps. At least he never promised anyone marriage though, nor has he – as far he knows at least – ever driven anyone to kill themselves. Also Moran does not hate women. In fact, he adores them, something that started long ago, with his mother and a formidable but kindly cook, no doubt. It seems to him though that even though Colonel Moriarty is capable of playing at being friends with certain female acquaintances (those who enjoy fox-hunting, of course) and though – apparently – he has had physical relationships with multiple girls and women, he dislikes women, seeing them really only as objects for his own sexual gratification. Even the Professor and Jamie, one who is not innately drawn to any sex at all, the fairer one included, and one who is drawn intimately only to his own sex, do not regard women in such a poor manner. Moran knows from his time spent with Moriarty that the Professor is always courteous and respectful towards women and has a particular admiration for one woman especially, the American opera singer Irene Adler. Jamie's behaviour towards the female servants and guests meanwhile demonstrates that the youngest brother is no misogynist. The Professor and Jamie are both what might be euphemistically termed confirmed bachelors. For Colonel Moriarty however, the term seems that it may be applied in a less oblique manner. Likely he will never marry a woman because he dislikes them far too much. That and that the women he is drawn to to sate his physical urges are definitely not the type of women that society would think it acceptable for him to marry anyway.

“Must we talk about him further?” the Professor enquires. “I find him a most unpleasant subject.” He strolls over to sit beside his brother, his hands in his lap.

“All right.” Jamie reaches down to fondle Ollie's ears. “So... you two, how did you two meet?”

Moran glances towards the Professor, uncertain exactly how much he is permitted to reveal to Jamie.

“It was rather by chance we encountered each other,” Moriarty says. “He had just returned to England from India, he needed somewhere to stay; I had room to spare. Actually, he had met James before, albeit briefly, which was how we initially came to know of each other.”

Moran supposes that part is at least somewhat true.

“ _James_ brought you together?” Jamie says, wide-eyed with incredulity.

“In some manner of speaking, yes.” The Professor smiles.

“I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know that,” Jamie says wryly, and laughs.

"I'm sure he would,” the Professor says, smiling still. “Perhaps I should thank him for that.”

Moran laughs too, glancing back towards the Professor, sitting there beside his younger brother, the pair of them softly illuminated by the glow of the lights coming from inside the house. Despite some of their conversation veering into disagreeable territory, despite him feeling so out of place here also, for a moment, being out here, being companionable with Moriarty's brother, it is pleasant. Just for a little while, out here under the stars on Christmas night, he feels at peace.

-

Late on Christmas night, and almost everyone has retired to bed, Jamie with Ollie at his heels. Even Moran has, grudgingly, gone on ahead of the Professor, leaving him to seek out his elder brother.

He finds him sitting alone, drinking scotch, in his study.

“Brother of mine, we must talk,” the Professor says.

Colonel Moriarty peers at him disdainfully. “About what?”

“About a horse. Your horse, Foxtrot, to be precise."

“Your pet soldier boy sent you, has he?” Colonel Moriarty enquires before sipping his scotch.

“You will not have that horse slaughtered,” the Professor states.

“Oh will I not? Yet I had thought I could do precisely as I wished with my own property,” the Colonel sneers, and he laughs. “What do you expect me to do then, sell her to your Mary boy? I must admit that I always thought you, James, were above that sort of thing. Of course I always knew Jamie was a damned backgammon player but I hoped perhaps you were better than that, but then this bit of rough who fucked his way across half the Indian continent presents his arse to you and you too are powerless to resist, it seems.”

The Professor's face remains impassive at this tirade. “Why did you invite Moran and myself here, really?” he asks. “You clearly loathe the pair of us.”

“Family duty,” the Colonel says. “Seeing as neither you nor Jamie could do it and Mama is well beyond organising anything, it was up to me, and I knew you would not come if _that man_ was not invited as well.”

“Since when did you care about family?” the Professor sneers. “You only care about preserving our name and reputation, no more, and you did not need to invite us all for Christmas in order to do that. I thought perhaps it was simply to gloat, to show off your house and attempt to rub our noses in its splendour, and I still believe that is a large part of it, but I think there is still more to it than that. You want to try to make me feel ashamed of myself as you are ashamed of me, but I am not ashamed, James.” Indeed he may occasionally have been uncertain or hesitant, sometimes even a little embarrassed by his relative lack of experience in such matters, particularly compared to the younger Moran, but shame remains an emotion the Professor is not well acquainted with. “The law may say that my regard for Moran is illegal, religion may say it is sinful, but I do not care. If you are ashamed of me, good, I am glad.” Some say that blood is thicker than water, but the Professor knows it is purely because Colonel Moriarty never wants such matters known of publicly for fear of how it may reflect upon _him_ that his elder brother will never expose the Professor's relations with Moran. Despite his brother's contempt then, the Professor does have a strange sort of freedom to refer to such matters in front of him. He truly is glad, in some manner, that James does not approve of him. If ever he has the approval of a man such as Colonel Moriarty he will know he has gone very badly wrong somewhere.

Colonel Moriarty eyes the Professor down his nose. “I have never understood you, James.”

“I am glad of that also. To be understood by a man such as yourself would be anathema to me.”

“For God's sake, James, why did you have to pick him, of all people?” The Colonel runs a hand through his greying auburn hair in exasperation. “As if it is not bad enough that you bed a man, but you chose _him_?”

“Whereas you, dear brother, have always been so conscientious in your choice of _paramour_ s, haven't you?” the Professor says with a wry smile. “I doubt a single one of them is someone you could have on your arm in polite society – your procession of actresses and dollymops.”

“That man has probably had half the Indian army, and plenty more besides, and he assaulted another officer!”

“You say these things as if you believe me to be unaware of his past.”

“I knew he was trouble as soon as I laid eyes on him. Even back then he was obviously a drunk.”

The Professor raises both eyebrows at the irony of this comment being uttered by his brother. “What would you prefer then, James, that I find myself some nice boy instead, hmm?” He strolls over to sit upon the Colonel's desk, sliding smoothly across its green leather top so that he is right in front of the Colonel, who hesitates, glass half-way to his lips, looking up at him. “But then I am not always a very nice man myself, now am I, _brother_?” he says in a soft, low tone.

His older brother has long been afraid of him, the Professor knows. Since they were boys, since the day the Professor-to-be fought back instead of being the passive victim the some-day-Colonel expected. Although younger and of a more slight build, the Professor-to-be was stronger, faster and smarter than his older brother. Since then, even though the Colonel has had his moments of forgetting not to provoke the Professor's ire, he has always been wary of him. The Colonel of course joined the army, whereas the Professor has never had the slightest interest in such matters, and certainly not in fighting for one's queen and country. Perhaps the Colonel would not therefore expect the Professor to be capable of killing a man then, but there are moments when he has looked into his middle brother's eyes and thought, in his rare instances of absolute clarity, _my brother is a killer._

Colonel Moriarty though does not ask what the Professor really gets up to, when he is not actually being a professor or tutor. He does not ask either why or how his middle brother even encountered a man like Moran – ex-army, a brilliant marksman, a former big game hunter, a man with the skill and temperament to kill. He does not ask because, the Professor thinks, he is afraid of what the answer might be.

Now, as the Professor leans forward slightly, smiling benignly, Colonel Moriarty recoils back in his chair.

“So,” the Professor says, still smiling, like a skull, “about this horse.”


	12. Chapter 12

It is Boxing Day and even Colonel Moriarty, not a man known for treating his servants well, feels obligated to give most of them the day off to visit their families. A couple of servants have remained in the house as well as Perkins the groom, though all have been paid well for agreeing to do so. With reduced staff the food today is more in the buffet style, with an array of cold meats, cheeses, bread, hard-boiled eggs, fruit and the like on offer for all the guests to help themselves to rather than having hot meals at set times, though there is plenty of tea, coffee and a large pot of hot soup provided by the remaining servants. Colonel Moriarty is however absent for much of the day anyway, off with the local hunt and probably also intent on avoiding his middle brother as much as possible.

“Shall we take a stroll around the grounds, Moran?” Moriarty enquires after they have eaten a luncheon of soup, cold ham, cheese and bread. “I feel I have probably gained a few too many pounds with the fine food here. My brother has not stinted on feeding us well, at least.” They are alone together in the dining room, his mother being in the drawing room with Jamie.

Moran, who has been seemingly engrossed in cutting up an apple with his penknife, shrugs. “If you like.” He pops the last piece of apple into his mouth before pushing his chair back and standing up. “Don't know why you'd want to look around again though.”

Moriarty smiles warmly. “Indulge me, my boy,” he says, leading the way out into the hallway. There he retrieves his coat, scarf and gloves. As Moran does the same, Moriarty leans across and brushes a speck of lint from the lapel of Moran's coat, smiling at him still, which leaves Moran looking even more perplexed.

-

They do indeed take a brief walk around the grounds, Moriarty linking his arm through Moran's. Not that there is much to see – a few statues and some bushes clipped into artful shapes in a manner both have always found rather distasteful.

“Why can't people just let bushes be bushes,” the Professor muses out loud. “Why must they turn it into a cube or some vague representation of a chicken or... whatever that is supposed to be.”

“Mm,” Moran says in response. Even he seems to have no interest in the statues of nude ladies meanwhile. They walk briskly across the still frosty grass, their feet leaving prints across it. Moran is still silent, seeming deep in thought.

“I confess I may have had an ulterior motive in bringing you out here,” Moriarty says as he gently but firmly draws Moran towards the stable-yard.

“Oh?” Moran says, eyes narrowing slightly in confusion as Moriarty stops before one particular loose-box. “This is...”

“Foxtrot's stable, yes.”

“Am I to ride her again?” Moran has wanted to, but hasn't dared do so. To draw further attention to his fondness for the mare would only make Colonel Moriarty have her killed all the sooner, he is sure. Since finding out the man's nature, Moran has in fact been seriously considering how he may steal the mare and whisk her away to safety. The Professor would hardly be against such a move.

“If you wish,” Moriarty replies.

Moran pulls away from him slightly and steps forward, leaning over the stable door to peer at Foxtrot. “Why is she...?” He looks back at Moriarty, even more bewildered, for Foxtrot stands tethered in her stable, wearing a red ribbon tied into a bow around her neck.

“I believe putting a bow around one's gifts is the done thing now,” Moriarty remarks. “I am sorry this particular gift is a little late for Christmas however.”

“Sir, you have...?” Moran trails off, unable to give voice to what he means to say, as if he believes that saying it aloud could destroy it.

“She is yours, Sebastian. My brother _very kindly_ agreed to sell her to me, and now I am giving her to you.”

Moran stares at him still. “But how did you...?”

Moriarty only presses a finger to his own lips and smirks. “Never you mind,” he says.

“Sir,” Moran says again, at something of a loss for words. “Professor. _James_.” Impulsively he rushes forward and slides his arms around Moriarty, who tenses briefly, instinctively, but he relaxes a second later, because it isn't someone else embracing him, it is Moran. “Thank you,” Moran says softly, face almost buried against the side of the Professor's neck. His voice sounds oddly choked.

Moriarty stands there in silence for a moment, hesitantly running his hand down Moran's back, letting Moran embrace him for as long as he wants. “Would you wish to take her to London?” he asks eventually. “I'm sure we could arrange for her to be kept with Philolaus and Archytas.”

“No,” Moran says firmly. “Thank you, but no.” He withdraws from Moriarty at last and enters the mare's stable, patting her glossy neck. “Hello girl,” he says softly to her as he calmly undoes the ribbon tied around her neck. “She don't belong in the city,” he says more loudly to the Professor.

“Yew Lodge then?”

“Yes.” Of course that means he will not get to spend as much time with her as he would like, but a sensitive horse like this needs space and freedom, not the noise and bustle and filth of London with an occasional ride down Rotten Row. Moran is no country boy and in some ways does miss the bustle of the big city whenever he is out in the countryside, but even he too hates many elements of London life. Perhaps if he keeps his riding horse at Yew Lodge this might also work in his favour, making it a little easier to persuade the Professor that they should increase the frequency of their visits there.

“That is what I thought you would say,” Moriarty remarks, smiling rather enigmatically.

“Why'd you look like that?” Moran asks, standing with his arm slung casually across Foxtrot's neck.

“Like what?” Moriarty enquires with perfect innocence.

“You're plottin' some idea.”

“I usually am.”

“Not one of your schemes, something else.”

“Well...” Moriarty puts a finger back to his lips, tapping it against them briefly, before answering further. “We shall need to leave a little earlier than originally planned to make our train.”

“Oh?”

“And we're not going back to London quite yet.”

“Where are we going then?”

“To Yew Lodge, of course, assuming this horse of yours will travel by train.”

“You've arranged this already?”

“Indeed. It was a combination of fortuitous circumstances arising and a small amount of money being placed into the right hands. There is a train tomorrow which already has a number of horses being sent on it, to some racing stable or other I believe. Arranging for one more animal to be sent alongside them was therefore not as difficult as one might have expected.” Moriarty smiles. “As much as I may rely on you at times, I am not incapable of organising things for myself, you know.”

“No, I know that.” Moran laughs. “So when exactly are we going?”

“We shall need to be at the station by ten O'clock tomorrow morning.”

“What a shame, to leave early,” Moran says, still chuckling. “Your elder brother is such a _delightful_ host.”

“I'm certain he will be glad to get rid of us,” Moriarty concurs.

Moran pats Foxtrot's glossy neck. “Hear that, girl? We're going to take a trip tomorrow. Best pack your travelling case now.”

Almost as if she understands him and is answering him with pleasure, Foxtrot whinnies loudly.


	13. Chapter 13

Moriarty is truly not sorry to be leaving early, even if Jamie seemed a little disappointed that the Professor and Moran were not staying longer.

“You must come and visit me sometime,” he said, clasping his brother's hand and holding it, looking earnestly into the Professor's eyes. “Both of you.”

“Of course,” Moran said, glancing at Moriarty, suspecting he has no desire at all to go and stay with his younger brother, but Moran truly would like to do this. “Won't we, Professor?”

“Yes.” Moriarty managed a fairly warm smile then, realising that at least visiting Jamie could not be as tortuous as spending time in Colonel Moriarty's company. If Moran really wants to do this he supposes he can endure it, eventually. “Of course.”

His elder brother meanwhile has not troubled to hide his relief that they are leaving and his mother seems to be away with the fairies again and uncertain exactly how many sons she has, so she is probably still unaware of his departure. Colonel Moriarty does come to see them off, watching through narrowed eyes as his brother climbs into the carriage and Moran mounts Foxtrot. The mare is wearing a plain snaffle bridle missing its noseband, without a martingale, and a flat-seated saddle that seems to be in dire need of restuffing. Perkins the groom had dug these out from somewhere and rubbed them with oil to try to soften them a little. Both are old and the saddle is uncomfortable to ride on but Moran has checked it over thoroughly and is convinced it is safe enough for the time being. After some adjustment to the bridle's cheekpieces and the addition of a blanket beneath the saddle the tack fits Foxtrot sufficiently well, although he certainly intends to purchase something much better for her as soon as possible. Both the saddle and bridle were formerly the property of Colonel Moriarty though clearly surplus to his requirements. Seemingly in order to try to save face however he has acted as if it was his decision all along to sell Foxtrot and he was so generous that he'd even toss in a bridle and saddle for nothing, instead of having to be somehow manipulated into parting with the horse using means even Moran still doesn't really understand. In fact Colonel Moriarty even attempts some faux-joviality just as Moran is about to ride away, although nobody seems to be fooled.

“A grand mare, what,” he says. “Glad to see her moving on to a more suitable home. I'm sure it will suit her, you being unwilling to jump and all.” Still unable to resist a snide little jibe then, but Moran, gazing between Foxtrot's brown ears, determinedly refuses to rise to this bait.

“I'm sure it will. Goodbye, Colonel Moriarty. Thank you again for having us.”

“Delighted to, uh, to have you here.” Colonel Moriarty reaches out to try to give Foxtrot a slap on the neck but the mare swings her head around with teeth bared. “Well, uh, off you go then, don't want to miss your train.” He backs away hurriedly.

Laughing to himself, Moran nudges Foxtrot into a walk, directing her after the slowly departing carriage.

The journey to the station is uneventful, the carriage horses and Foxtrot trotting underneath a somewhat leaden sky which still suggests snow is coming soon but has yet to deliver on that promise. Moriarty rides in the carriage which also carries their luggage, including the picture from Jamie carefully packed between two thick pieces of board and set between his feet. Moran meanwhile follows behind on Foxtrot, riding her quietly but firmly. Aside from the occasional head toss or shying at a wind-blown branch and at a dog that comes charging towards the farm yard gate, barking as they pass, she is very good.

At the station, amongst other items classed as 'freight', the little group of young would-be racehorses are waiting, standing tethered to the rails of a livestock pen off to the side, all of them rugged and bandaged and with their ears filled with wadding to muffle the noises of the train and bustling station. Foxtrot, though hardly a heavyweight horse, looks huge beside the horses. She surveys the scene around her with a little rolling of her eyes and snorting but she seems more interested than spooked by the bustle of the station. Moran remains with her until her turn comes to be prepared for her journey, removing her saddle but leaving her bridle on until a groom who is to travel with the racehorses comes and replaces it with a leather headcollar. Her tack is carried away to be stowed upon the train and the groom then neatly and proficiently rugs her up and bandages her legs in preparation for loading her. She accepts all of this serenely enough, seeming only to dislike it when they try to put wadding in her ears.

“Leave it,” Moran says, as she throws up her head yet again. “She'll be all right without.” When he bridled her before they rode out she tossed her head about then too, although she seemed to grow bored with it after a minute or two.

Their transport today appears to be a van specially fitted out for carrying horses, rather lighter and airier than Moran was expecting. Even so all of the young horses, upon realising they are meant to go inside the van, side-step and prance about and goggle their eyes as if they are being asked to walk straight into the jaws of death. One big black filly is led in without much more than a lot of snorting and stamping about and a slap on the rump from the groom to chivvy her along but a rangy chestnut has to be driven in using a strap passed around its backside and after that the remaining horses start playing up too much to get them anywhere even near the ramp.

“Leave those two a minute, get the older bay in first before they wind that one up an' all,” instructs the man who seems to be overseeing the loading.

Foxtrot though is still regarding the carriage and the other horses with more curiosity than terror, unconcerned even by the hissing steam from the train or the general noise of the people moving about, getting on the train themselves or moving luggage or freight. When Moran leads her towards the ramp though she still baulks initially upon putting one hoof on the ramp, uncertain about its safety.

“Come on, hup.” Moran clicks his tongue at her and steps firmly forward, placing a booted foot upon the ramp. It feels solid and sturdy enough to him and has been spread with straw to make it more inviting and he has no qualms about leading her up it. After sniffing at it warily she half-places another foot onto it, prodding at it delicately, then seems to decide it's secure enough and practically bounds over the ramp beside him. “Good girl.” Moran feeds her sugar while she is secured into her travelling stall, its well-padded walls testament to the high value of the livestock it more usually transports. Apparently her willingness to load has made an impression on the other two fillies, for they are loaded up shortly after without a great deal more fuss. When Moran leaves Foxtrot she seems happy enough, munching on some hay.

“Everything all right?” Moriarty asks, glancing up from his newspaper when Moran enters their carriage.

“She's fine, it was those bloody racehorses who held things up.” Moran settles himself on the seat opposite the Professor. He places his hat on the seat beside him. “You know I reckon your brother has hit her in the face before, as well as cutting her mouth to pieces with sharp bits.”

“It wouldn't surprise me,” Moriarty says over the top of his paper. “He was always rather brutish.”

“You are really nothing like him,” Moran remarks.

“I'm glad to know that.”

Moran leans forward slightly. “Sir, your mother suggested that... Jamie's father is...”

“Not the same as my father?” Moriarty still doesn't look up from his paper, as if the topic under discussion bores him, which perhaps it does. “Yes, I presumed that much when I was still young. My parents were hardly close even at the best of times; by then they were all but estranged, and while I saw a clear resemblance between Jamie and my mother, I could see nothing of my father in him.”

“Does Jamie know?”

“I believe so.”

“Yet you and Jamie have more in common than you and the Colonel,” Moran remarks.

Moriarty does look up again at this. The notion seems to surprise him. “Jamie is a milksop, a daydreamer, a boy who still plays with trains.”

“Why do you still try to pretend you have only contempt for him?” Moran asks. “Even to me? There is nothing shameful in caring for or liking one's brother. Besides, he ain't that weak. You of all people know, how difficult it can be, being the way he is, yet he is true to himself.”

“Yes,” Moriarty says. “He is not truly the weakling he appears to be, I agree. And yes, perhaps I am fond of him – far more fond of him than any other family member.” He carefully closes and folds up his paper and lays it down on the seat next to him. Now he too leans forward a little, his elbows resting on his thighs, his fingers steepled together. “Now, Moran, since you seem so intent on revealing all my family secrets, I think it is only fair that you tell me something more about you.”

Moran watches him steadily. “All right.”

“You and the piano,” Moriarty says, and Moran flinches back almost as if he has been struck. “Until _very_ recently I had no idea you played the piano.”

“Well.” Moran, his hands resting on his thighs, shrugs. “I don't. Not any more.”

“You were clearly taught well however, once.”

"Once.”

“By your mother.” Moriarty states this simply as fact. He does not need to ask it as a question, nor – seeing Moran's reaction – does he need to hear Moran confirm this out loud.

Moran, closing his eyes, turns his face away, towards the window. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

Moriarty watches him for a moment, seeing the stiffness of Moran's posture, before deciding it is prudent to change the subject. Briefly he pats Moran on the knee, although the Colonel continues to gaze out of the window. Even as Moriarty returns to reading his paper, he is still thinking matters over in the back of his mind, pondering something.

When they arrive at their destination, Moran leads Foxtrot out. She snorts and throws up her head, looking around her, nerves straining, tail held up like a banner, though compared to where she started off this station is fairly quiet. She doesn't seem too happy to be leaving her young companions though, who are heading on to the next station, and she bellows out a neigh which is answered by one of the horses still on the train.

“Come on, you don't want to be spendin' too much time with those sorts, you'll get ideas.” Moran slaps her neck affectionately.

“Not an admirer of racehorses, Moran?” Moriarty enquires, having come to watch Foxtrot being unloaded.

“Lot of blood weeds with silly names, ain't it?” Moran laughs. Not that he hasn't had a flutter or two on some of them sometimes, but they do call it the sport of kings and that is hardly a point in its favour for him.

The mare's borrowed rug and bandages are quickly stripped off and loaded back onto the train and her saddle and bridle are brought out. Once more she throws up her head as Moran attempts to get the bridle on.

“Come on, silly mare, we don't want to stand freezing our bits off,” he chides her, his tone of voice light.

At last she drops her nose though and he is able to put the bridle on and hand the headcollar back to the groom, along with a handsome tip for his trouble.

“Thank you kindly sir,” the man says, before bounding back into the train to continue to keep an eye on his remaining equine charges.

The air is bitter and the sky is turning to shades of pink and orange as the afternoon slides away towards evening. Foxtrot snorts steam into the cold air as Moran leads her out to where the trap is waiting, their luggage already loaded on board. Spotting Charlie between the shafts, Foxtrot lets out a whinny and stretches out her neck towards him, seemingly deciding he is an adequate replacement for her now-departing horse acquaintances. The bay cob very politely touches noses with her but seems unimpressed by her prancing about on the spot, no doubt considering it a waste of energy.

“You following on behind, sir?” Barnett, the driver, calls to Moran. “Probably safer.” Knowing that it will be getting dark soon, he has already lit the lamps on the trap.

“Unless she gets it into her 'ead to bolt, yes,” Moran replies, mounting her. It wouldn't surprise him if Foxtrot tries – she seems riled up by the train and leaving the young fillies behind, although once Charlie is set on his way, clip-clopping into the oncoming twilight, she apparently makes up her mind to be sensible and hasten after him, afraid of being left behind.

Darkness is descending by the time they arrive at the dark, heavy wrought iron gates of Yew Lodge, which stand open in readiness for them.

“I suppose you'd like to see to her before you come inside,” Moriarty remarks as he steps down from the trap.

“If you don't mind.” Moran dismounts from Foxtrot, jumping down onto the gravel drive.

“Got a box all ready for her, sir,” Barnett tells him. “Found a blanket and headcollar that'll probably fit her and all. I'll take her if you want.”

“No, thank you; you just see to Charlie.”

“Right you are sir.”

While Barnett unharnesses Charlie, Moran leads Foxtrot into the stable block. As promised a loose box has been set up for her, with thick straw bedding, fresh water and a rack of sweet-smelling hay all ready. Her hooves clip-clop pleasantly over the brick floor before he leads her into the box. He removes her bridle, putting on the headcollar in its place. This involves a great deal of head tossing but by stretching up he manages to get it on her and ties her to the ring in the wall before bringing her the bucket of water first. She spends a while snorting and blowing into the wooden bucket and gives it a couple of nudges from her forefoot for good measure before finally deigning to drink from it, whilst Moran proceeds to remove her saddle and brush and rub her down thoroughly. After a time she pulls at the hay while he continues to work, occasionally turning her head around to blow warm air down his neck. She is oddly playful towards him, like an oversized dog. How long has this animal been deprived of real kindness, he wonders. Colonel Moriarty's groom did not particularly seem to be an unkind man and was certainly gentler than his master but Moran cannot imagine him being especially affectionate towards the mare either. She was probably well trained once, before Colonel Moriarty got hold of her and nearly ruined her, but perhaps nobody since whoever did that first training with her has been kind to her since.

He does not brush her head. Although he has a soft brush for it, he thinks it would be too much for her at the moment. Better leave her to settle and allow her to get used to her new surroundings before he starts messing around near her face too much.

A woollen stable rug has been put out for her, old but well cared for, left folded over on the rail outside the box, and it proves to be a decent fit when he puts it on her. “There we are, all nice and smart, eh?” he says as he finishes buckling the blanket's straps. She turns her head again and pushes her velvet-soft muzzle against his hand. “All right then.” He runs his hand gently down her long nose, pleased when she doesn't immediately toss her head up again. “Good girl.” He takes a lump of sugar out of his pocket and holds it out on his palm. She takes it gently, daintily, brushing his skin with her whiskers before taking the sugar and crunching it up. With a final pat on her neck, he unties her and unbuckles the headcollar, leaving her loose in the box.

Barnett leads Charlie into the next box and Foxtrot puts her nose up to the partition to whicker at the other horse, though Charlie seems more interested in his hay than in the mare.

“Settling in all right, is she?” Barnett calls.

“Yes, fine.” Moran picks up the saddle and slings the bridle over his shoulder.

“She's a nice-looking horse,” Barnett remarks as he rubs down Charlie. “Shame about those knees though.”

“Just superficial damage. It don't make a difference to me.”

“Aye, well. Too many good horses are thrown away just over a bit of scarring and the like.”

“I'm sure they are.”

“I'll see to her feed shortly,” Barnett says. “You can get inside now, sir; it's raw out, and I reckon the Professor's waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” Moran takes the saddle and bridle into the tack room, hoisting the saddle onto a spare rack and hanging the bridle from a thick wooden peg and then, hands in his pockets, he strolls across the yard towards the main house.

Moriarty is indeed waiting for him inside, although he looks less than pleased when Moran saunters in. “You stink of horse,” he remarks. “Is this how it will be now then? You coming in reeking of the stable-yard?” Although his smile suggests he feels fond rather than irritated. Moran seems happy around the horses, and that fact is immensely pleasurable to the Professor.

“Give me a chance to get washed.”

“Well don't take too long.”

“I won't,” Moran calls as he heads upstairs to get cleaned up.

When he returns, washed and spruced up and thankfully no longer smelling of horse, the Professor is already seated at the dinner table waiting for him.

“I have something to show you later,” Moriarty remarks over their meal.

Moran pauses with his fork, bearing a piece of mutton, halfway to his lips. “What?”

But all Moriarty will say in answer is, “Wait until after supper.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Come here.” Moriarty takes Moran's hand and leads him into a room Moran has never been interested in exploring before. Originally it was perhaps intended as a games room but now it is more of a lumber room, filled with miscellaneous pieces of furniture under dust sheets. The effect is strangely ghostly, seeing all these items under their white shrouds. “Here.” Moriarty pulls back the sheet on one of the larger pieces, and Moran realises what the thing beneath is even before its cloth comes away. It is a piano.

He stares at it, unsure what he is expected to say, therefore saying nothing, and he remains unmoving.

“I suspect that it hasn't been played for years and it will certainly need to be tuned, but that can be arranged, if you wish.” Moriarty runs his fingers through the dust that has accumulated on the piano's top despite the sheet, rubbing his fingertips together immediately afterwards.

“If I wish?” Moran says, standing behind him.

Moriarty turns to face him. “If you would like to play again.”

“I don't want to.”

“But you play so beautifully.”

“I _don't want to_ ,” Moran repeats, but more forcefully.

“But it is such a shame, to waste such talent.”

“Let it go to waste, I don't care.” Moran folds his arms across his chest. “Sir, please, don't. Don't push.”

“I am not pushing.”

“You're trying to bring up something that's best left dead and buried; it amounts to the same thing.” Moran turns smartly on his heel and marches from the room.

Slightly bewildered by his companion's reaction, Moriarty pulls the dust sheet back over the piano. In times such as these he thinks that he doesn't understand Moran at all, no matter how close they have become. He can hear the Colonel's footsteps on the stairs, moving rapidly, indicating that Moran is angry, and that confuses the Professor further because really, wasn't he simply trying to be kind? Certainly it was far more of a risk than buying that horse for him, but his intentions were much the same, weren't they?

Only, he supposes, he _did_ have Moran's character and history thoroughly researched before employing him. Although Moran does trust him a great deal, bearing that in mind perhaps it is understandable that he still suspects Moriarty of prying into his private life, of trying to dig up more information about him without having the best intentions.

He walks out of the room and goes to find Moran, locating him mostly by smell. The Colonel rarely smokes in the house but apparently tonight his mood is such that he feels justified in smoking in the bedroom, albeit with the window open. He does not turn around as the Professor enters the room behind him, remaining standing with his hand resting against the window ledge.

“Why are you so interested in all of this?” he asks. “Making me relive my past?”

“Because I am interested in _you_.”

“So I ain't allowed to keep anything at all from you, am I?”

“It is not a matter of what is 'allowed'. You and your past, they interest me. Isn't that what two people who become close typically do, share details about themselves?”

“Yeah, well...” Moran takes a drag on his cigarette, blowing smoke towards the open window before he finishes. “You don't seem as interested somehow in sharing details about _your_ past with me.”

“I have introduced you to my family, have I not?”

“But that wasn't really your choice to do that, and it's still like every tiny little bit of information has to be wrung out of you. Even to me you still try to hide everything, like Jamie; you still try to make out even to me that you can't stand him and you think him a silly little boy, when I know that ain't truly what you think. All this pretence even to _me_ , it's insulting.” Moran turns at last and meets Moriarty's gaze steadily. The end of the cigarette he clasps between his fingers smoulders momentarily, before he stubs it out forcefully in the ash tray.

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” Moriarty says coolly. He makes to turn aside but Moran lunges forward, grips him by the shoulder and pushes Moriarty back against the wall, trapping him there with his body while his hand is at the Professor's throat.

“You're never sorry about anything, not really,” Moran says. He grins, but there is a degree of darkness in that grin that Moriarty has never seen face to face before. “Cos you always think really you're in the right.”

“Not always.”

“Nearly always then.”

“Perhaps,” Moriarty concedes, smiling. There is an intensity about his lover in this moment that Moriarty _almost_ finds intimidating. He knows that Moran is a hunter, a killer, a _predator_ , but it is rare for this tiger to ever show his claws directly to his master. Yet Moran's hand is still at his throat, and Moriarty leaves it there. He lifts his hands only to place them against Moran's sides, stroking him through his clothing.

Moran's breath hitches and his gaze drops a degree. “You can't get round me like that,” he says gruffly, looking up again. The look in his eyes might suggest the opposite of his words however.

“Can I not?” Moriarty queries softly.

“No. You can't.” Moran grins as he leans forward to press his lips to the Professor's.

Trying to forestall him, Moriarty puts one hand around the back of Moran's head; the other grips Moran's shirt, bunching the fabric in his fist, pulling him closer, so that for a second or two as their mouths meet it is unclear who is in control here. Moran's lips are warm but somewhat rough; Moriarty's a tad cooler but softer. Moriarty uses his bodyweight to push Moran backwards as he kisses him. Moran gets a hand up in the Professor's hair as he does so, holding him as he presses his tongue into Moriarty's mouth. Moriarty drives him backwards, pushes him back towards the bed, but Moran tugs sharply on the Professor's hair, pulling him around as if in some strange dance and shoves him hard back against the bed.

Moran is atop him in a moment, crouching over him, trapping him. His eyes look so terribly dark. Again he kisses Moriarty aggressively, and Moriarty kisses back – he may not understand attraction, innate desires, any of that, but he knows how to kiss by now – and as he kisses he nips at Moran's lip, drawing blood. Moran pulls back, less from pain and more simply surprised, panting, rubbing a hand across his lip, and Moriarty seizes this moment to get his hand into Moran's hair and pull sharply, twisting Moran's head away, using that movement to push him off sideways. For a few seconds they are grappling on the bed, each trying to overpower the other, before Moran gets a leg over Moriarty's and slides over him once more.

“ _No_ ,” Moran says fiercely. He grips Moriarty's hands and pins them above his head, practically slamming them down. It's a reminder that even though he has calmed down a great deal under the Professor's control, still there is violence in him, simmering away beneath the surface.

Moriarty, also breathing hard, lies there and looks up at him. He can feel Moran's cock through his trousers, stiffening against him, and he should be afraid, he should be terrified – held down like this, in such intimate contact with someone, it should be horrifying to him. But it is not anyone else, it is Moran, and Moriarty may not always get things right with him and may be still frequently confused by him but still, he _knows_ him, and he knows that still one word from him, one gesture even, and Moran would back away.

“Do you know what I'm going to do with _this_ , sir?” Moran asks. He shifts his hips so that Moriarty can better feel Moran's arousal against his thigh.

“I can't imagine,” Moriarty says wryly, and in response to this Moran lowers his head and nips hard at Moriarty's earlobe. He does not draw blood, but it earns him a pleasant gasp of pain or pleasure or both from the Professor.

“I'm going to take you,” he says, voice low and still right in Moriarty's ear. “I'm gonna to fuck you, fill you up, make you mine, as you have made me yours. _Sir._ ”

“Are you indeed.” Moriarty smiles, because how interesting it is to be reminded that simply because Moran usually submits to him, he is no passive weakling; to have it confirmed that this tiger is not some poor timid creature, declawed and defanged. Many would think that a man such as Moriarty, a man so neat and precise in most of his habits; a man with so little interest in physical intimacy with anyone also, could not be the slightest bit interested in such _animalistic_ acts as these, but the Professor does so like to confound people's expectations. “Are you sure you can manage to do that, hmm?” he enquires, because he also so likes to provoke Moran, within reasonable limits. “After all those times I have taken you, are you sure you can still do things the other way around?”

“I'm sure I can remember.” Moran moves to kiss Moriarty again, slower now, but still forcefully. He relinquishes his hold on Moriarty's arms as they kiss. Both can taste blood when their mouths meet, even after Moran breaks away, breathing rapidly. “Take your clothes off,” he commands.

“No.” Moriarty meets Moran's gaze with amusement showing in his blue-grey eyes. That look conveys perfectly how his refusal is intended only in play, as provocation. Still one word need only be uttered here and Moran would back off immediately, but Moriarty is far too interested in where this is going to give him that order.

“Take 'em off,” Moran growls, in a tone which seems to come from low down in his chest.

“ _Make me_.” Moriarty continues to gaze up at him with absolute defiance. “And shut that damned window.”

Moran tilts his chin up. “All right,” he says, grinning crookedly. “If that's the game you wanna play.”

He does get up and close the window though, because it _is_ making it bloody cold in here, and he draws the curtains across as well. It's unlikely anyone is going to be able to peer in at them, but he doesn't much like the idea of being so exposed.

And then Moran strips Moriarty piece by piece, lower garments first, not being especially careful in their removal. Moriarty doesn't resist this but nor does he particularly try to help matters – he only regards Moran steadily with a wry expression all the while as he is stripped.

It is not that he has never seen Moran like this, showing his dominant side – he has, but not towards him, not really. Moran can be cocksure, answering the Professor back, and he can be assertive, particularly during acts with which Moriarty has no experience where he values Moran's guidance, but he doesn't usually take charge of the Professor like this. It is not something Moriarty can allow to happen too often, he knows it and, he thinks, so does Moran. But there is interest to be had in allowing this reverse in polarity, this change in the balance of things between them, at least for a little while.

As the Professor is steadily laid bare beneath him, exposing his pale, slightly freckled skin, with the fine hair across his chest and the trail of it running down his abdomen, Moran has to resist the urge to kiss his way downwards, to bury his face between the Professor's thighs and take his still-soft prick in his mouth, sucking him until he can coax him to spend. He has done that so many times before though and while he adores doing that, he wants – _needs_ – something different tonight. They both do.

Finally there is only Moriarty's undershirt to remove and after that he lies beneath Moran, totally naked whilst Moran remains completely clothed. As a concession to his own comfort, Moran does step back and take off his jacket, then tugs off his tie and casts both items aside. He keeps the rest of his clothing on though. Tonight it seems to matter that he does so whilst the Professor is bare.

“Turn over,” he instructs, leaning over to grab the bolster from behind the pillows. Moriarty seems to have decided to obey him, at least for now, and as he turns over Moran pushes the bolster beneath Moriarty's hips.

“You realise this will be soiled by the time we've finished?” Moriarty points out.

“It'll wash off.” Moran slides over to straddle the Professor, his hands on Moriarty's hips, stroking downwards.

“You are going to...?” Moriarty glances back over his shoulder. “What about the oil?”

“Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Moran says, lightly patting Moriarty's backside. He grins. “Relax. I know what I'm doin'.”

“I know, I know.” Moriarty lies down again. “I just...” He doesn't give up his control readily or often, not like this. Putting himself so thoroughly in Moran's hands is... unusual; it is _unnatural_. Moriarty has always been a controlling figure, one whose apparent acquiescence to the will of those around him only ever happened because he realised sometimes far more could be gained by playing along. He does not put himself into vulnerable situations; he does not allow himself to be at the mercy of another.

Except with Moran, sometimes, he does.

“I know. Shhh. You don't need to think it over too much, just trust me.” Moran leans over and presses his lips against the back of the Professor's neck. Achingly slowly, he kisses his way downwards, down Moriarty's spine, feeling the Professor shiver slightly at the sensations. He presses his hand against Moriarty's back, rubbing him with his knuckles, soothing him. When he reaches the small of the Professor's back with his mouth he changes to using his tongue, trailing it down, and still further down.

Beneath him Moriarty tenses. “Moran, what are you...?”

“'S'all right.” Moran puts his hands on the Professor's buttocks and carefully draws them apart.

“You can't want to...” Moriarty glances back over his shoulder again.

“Shhh.” Moran looks up, grinning. “Course I want to.” And he winks before he drops his gaze, lowering his head a moment later as he puts his tongue between Moriarty's buttocks.

“Moran!” Moriarty cries, and Moran pauses, drawing back slightly, watching him intently.

“Cease?” he asks. Because it is entirely possible that this is one of those things that will overload the Professor – too much sensation all at once, too much for him to bear, and Moran might be predatory in his nature but he still cares, and he is not monstrous. Pushing Moriarty into some manner of mental collapse is the last thing he would wish to do.

“Hold. Just... hold.”

So Moran nods, almost imperceptibly, and he waits, and waits, with seemingly limitless patience, his expression perfectly calm, until Moriarty says softly, “Proceed.”

Moran licks him and tongues him, coaxing the Professor to open up to him with care and skill. Moriarty has no idea still why Moran enjoys such things; why he would want to do something so thoroughly obscene, but right now he is immensely glad that Moran does want to do this.

Moriarty lies with his arms crossed above his head, his forehead resting against his forearms, and he groans and curses into the bedclothes beneath him. It should be too much – the sensations of Moran's tongue between his buttocks; of it pressing inside him even – but somehow, because it's Moran; because Moriarty doesn't have to worry right now about anything else, such as _is this person going to take advantage of my temporary distraction and murder me_ , it isn't too much. It's enough – intense, but perfect.

Moran's tongue is pressed inside him as far as he can go now, and the Professor's cock is fully hard by this point. The sensations are glorious, as Moran stimulates nerves that most people probably do not even know exist.

Moran's own prick is also rock hard by now, constrained by his clothing, leaking fluid into his underclothes, but he has no intention of releasing it or relieving himself until he is sure the Professor is fully prepared.

When he pulls away at last to pick up the oil, Moriarty is shaking and barely coherent. He is almost relieved that Moran has ceased stimulating him. He needs a moment or two to gather his unravelling thoughts together and to brace himself for what is to come next.

Moran wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “All right?” he ask, as he pours oil over his fingers.

“Yes,” Moriarty replies. “Yes, just... ah... I am not certain I will ever quite get used to this.”

Moran leans over him again as he slides his finger inside Moriarty, kissing the back of his neck. “We don't 'ave to do this.” Easing his finger in slowly, though the passage is nowhere near as difficult as it would have been without the judicious use of his tongue. “Not if you don't want it.”

“That's not what I meant,” Moriarty tells him, and Moran pauses again.

“What did you mean then?”

“That it's just... very different. It... takes some adjustment, mentally, to, ah... put myself in this position.”

Moran considers this comment for a moment. Crouched over the Professor, his tousled hair already falls over his forehead. His blue eyes seem dark in the gloom, his manner appears predatory still. Everything about this situation should feel abnormal perhaps – Moriarty beneath another man, surrendering much of his control to him. It seems to go against the usual order of things so completely that it feels as if the Professor should have been firm with Moran and told him no, that he is not doing this, way before they got to this stage.

And yet the Colonel's bodyweight pressing him down is somehow reassuring, as is Moran's dominance in these rare moments. His behaviour and manner is still contained and controlled, perfectly held in check, and though he is capable of displaying aggression, his behaviour is laced with tenderness and care for Moriarty.

“I ain't exactly used to seeing you in this position either,” he admits after a pause, gently drawing his finger out before easing it in again. Truly, he prefers things the other way around, on the whole, and he would hardly wish to make this routine, but sometimes the temptation to assert his dominance over the Professor rears its head and both of them seem to need to give in to that.

Moriarty's breathing is erratic, reduced to fractured little gasps of pleasure as Moran works his fingers inside him, then a sharper cry as the Colonel's long, strong finger finds that gland deep inside him. “Christ, Moran, just... just enter me!” he says. Almost petulant in his manner, and unable to quite keep from giving orders.

Moran smiles at him, baring his teeth. “What if I won't?” he asks, because he can do petulant too, and he could – he actually, genuinely could – refuse to give in to his own urges to enter the Professor; he could rob himself of the amazing sensations that that will involve, just to get one over on his lover, on his _master_.

“Please,” Moriarty whispers hoarsely. As close to begging as he will get. “Sebastian...”

“All right.” Moran's smile becomes something softer and gentler. “Since you said please.” He withdraws his fingers and pulls back, to draw his braces down his shoulder, leaving then hanging by his hips, and he unbuttons his trousers, pushing his hand inside to grasp his cock and tug it out. He needs no more preparation himself, but a dab more oil smeared from its root to its tip will better minimise any discomfort Moriarty will feel.

When Moran guides his cock inside him, the Professor goes very tense, muscles bunching under his skin, like a horse gathering itself to buck or bolt.

“S'all right, 's'all right, just breathe,” Moran says softly, because when Moriarty tenses he holds his breath and then he is falling into a vicious cycle where he can start spiralling into panic if they are not careful. “Breathe, all right.” Moran's mouth is close against the Professor's ear again as he slides his prick all the way in, as Moriarty lets out a long shuddering breath.

“My dove,” Moriarty says in a quiet, almost broken voice. It hurts – no matter how careful Moran is and how thoroughly he has prepared Moriarty, there is still a twinge of pain as Moran stretches and fills him. Moriarty is still far too inexperienced with being on the receiving end like this for there to be no discomfort involved. But the pain is not like the pain of a toothache or a sprain or broken bone; not some rotten ache or searing agony. There is a sense of being stretched, of being filled in a way that is very nearly too much, and in some sense, it feels wrong – not some manner of moral judgement, but simply down to the fact that something is entering _into_ what was only intended as an exit. It is a strange and alien feeling, not one that Moriarty would accept much less welcome from anyone else. Anyone else who tried this with him would swiftly be laid out on the floor likely with a broken nose, at the very least.

But Moran is his dearest friend, his closest companion, and, yes, his family. Time spent with his own blood family has only served to confirm to the Professor that Moran is the person he truly regards as family, a husband, in some sense, and he trusts him far more than he trusts any of his blood relations. That Moran has many many years of sexual experience behind him does vex the Professor, sometimes; it makes him worry from time to time that he is himself too staid, too inexperienced, too lacking somehow in some critical way. Moran's experience though is also a bonus; it can also serve to reassure Moriarty that Moran knows exactly what he is doing and that he would never cause him serious injury or harm, not even by accident. Thus as Moran pushes deep inside him, though there is pain it is a pain that is laced with pleasure, that merges so thoroughly with that other sensation that the Professor struggles to judge where one ends and the other begins. Yes, it feels wrong in some sense, but in other ways it is very, very right.

“If you want me to stop...” Moran is so close to him, cock inside him, arms wrapped around him, his chest against the Professor's back, and Moriarty can feel the slight scratchiness of Moran's trousers against his buttocks. It would be torment to stop now, when he has got into a rhythm, when he is getting closer and closer and closer to his release, but if Moriarty wants - _needs_ \- it he would, he really would.

“No,” Moriarty says, screwing his eyes tightly closed. “No, I want you to... to...”

“Proceed?”

“Mm.”

Moran changes the angle of his thrusts slightly, and Moriarty gasps, and then Moran's hand is sliding beneath him to grasp his prick, stroking the Professor in time with his thrusting, and Moriarty comes soon after this, helplessly, almost unexpectedly. He spills across Moran's fingers, a little splashing onto the bolster, as predicted, and Moran fucks him through it, feeling the Professor's body clenching around his own prick.

"God you are so...” he breathes. _Tight_ ; he means tight, but there are a couple of other words he could easily slot into the gap too. So beautiful. So much.

Moran comes a few seconds after the Professor, his mouth against the back of Moriarty's neck, groaning against him as he spends inside him. Finally he slumps against him, panting, feeling Moriarty breathing hard beneath him.

“All right?” he asks, laughing, feeling giddy suddenly.

“Mm.” Moriarty seems to be struggling to think of any actual words right now.

Moran slowly withdraws from him, though Moriarty still winces as he eases out. Looking down, Moran almost expects to see blood – it happens sometimes, even to him, though it has never been anything serious. There is nothing though. “Sure?” he asks again.

“Yeah,” Moriarty says, smiling.

Moran laughs again, inclining his head to kiss the Professor on the shoulder before moving away from him. He wipes himself off with a handkerchief and tucks his now soft prick back into his clothing.

“I wish you would... that you'd let me prepare before you... before you used your mouth,” Moriarty complains, turning over. “I would have cleaned myself properly first.”

Moran chuckles. “You don't need to. I've never known anyone as fastidious about keepin' clean as you.” He doesn't sounds as if he is mocking Moriarty for this, just as if he is stating a fact, and a bit fond.

Moran himself has the cleanliness of a cat, on the whole. He keeps himself clean; washes or bathes regularly; changes his clothes. He is most definitely not unpleasant for Moriarty to be around. But Moriarty is cleaner and neater still.

“Besides, I don't expect and certainly don't want your arse to smell like roses or something.” Moran laughs again.

"I don't understand still why you like that act.”

“Told you before, I like everything.” Moran reaches over to gently brush Moriarty's face with his hand.

“I'm not kissing you again now,” Moriarty tells him, knowing where this is going. “Go and clean yourself up properly first.”

“Aye sir.” Moran gives him a mock salute before sliding from the bed.

“And get some hot water so I can clean up too!” Moriarty calls after him as he strolls from the room.

Moran merely waves a hand in assent.


	15. Chapter 15

Moran is out of the room for a little while, although Moriarty possibly begins to doze off so he is not quite sure just how long Moran is gone. The Colonel's hair had begun to fall over his face during their _exertions_ , but when he returns it is pushed back off his forehead, damp from water and not with sweat. He carries a pail of steaming water with a wash-cloth floating in it, as well as a bar of soap and has a clean towel draped over his arm.

“Professor?” he says softly.

Moriarty opens his eyes again. “You have cleaned yourself properly?” he enquires. With Moran there is no need to specify further for he is not the kind of man to claim he has washed when he hasn't.

“Yes sir. Want me to clean you up?”

“No, no. I can do it.” Moriarty sits up, still grimacing slightly as he moves.

“You sure you're all right?”

“Perfectly fine. Stop asking.” Although Moriarty smiles as he says this, liking Moran's concern for him, and Moran doesn't seem offended by his words.

“Mind if I smoke again?” he asks.

“No, I don't mind. Just don't open the window again. I'd rather endure your infernal smoke than the bitter cold.”

Moran fetches his tobacco pouch and carefully rolls two new cigarettes whilst Moriarty washes himself. When the Professor has dried himself off with the towel, he sits back down on the bed and beckons to Moran. “Come here.”

Moran, lit cigarette held in the side of his mouth, goes to him, settling himself down with his back against Moriarty's chest. He rests the ashtray on his own stomach.

“Believe me, my boy, my dear Sebastian,” Moriarty says, “whatever I do, I do not through malice, but simply because I know no other way. It takes time, to adjust to having a companion.”

“I know. I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did.”

“It's all right.”

“It's just... some of those things I 'aven't thought about in so long and there's probably a good reason for that. Like the piano...”

“I never meant to cause you pain.”

“I know, and you didn't, really. But sometimes too it just seems like... you expect me to reveal everything when I know so little about you.”

“I'm interested in you, that's all. And you know more than anyone else about me.”

“I know that too.” Moran pauses to blow smoke up towards the ceiling. “But it still feels like... you've stripped me down to my soul but you... you're still always wearing a mask.”

Moriarty thinks this over for a moment. Perhaps Moran is right. He has spent so long alone as well as so long being two people – the respectable professor and the schemer and plotter behind so many criminal acts, and while the mathematics professor and tutor is just as much his true face as his criminal schemer's face, he perhaps spent too long pretending to the world that that professor and tutor is all that there is to him. He is not used to sharing much about himself, not to anyone.

“What is it you want to know about me then?” he asks.

Moran glances back. “I dunno, just...”

Moriarty holds out his hand to Moran, who obliges him, passing him the cigarette. He takes a long thoughtful drag on it before handing it back.

Moran takes another pull on his cigarette, still thinking the matter over. “All right,” he says at last. “How'd your father die?”

“He drowned.”

“Accidentally?”

“Some say so.”

Moran makes a wry expression. “God, even now you can't give me a straight answer. You feel you must preserve this air of mystery about yourself and everything connected with you, don't you?” But he laughs, amused rather than angry about this.

“Silly me, and I thought you liked that.”

“Look,” Moran says, gesturing with his cigarette, “I do. I like the way you're all... enigmatic and controlled, and how you have this... this air about you, of power.” It turns him on like nothing else - the sense that Moriarty radiates that he is so self-controlled, and so controlling, so domineering, so _masterful_. It isn't all about sex – their relationship and Moran's feelings for the Professor – but he would have to admit that the Professor's assertiveness and dominance gets him hard like nothing else ever has. “But sometimes I just... I wish you'd give me a little bit more of yourself.”

“It's true though.”

“What is?”

“Some people do say my father drowned accidentally. That was the official verdict.”

“But really?”

Moriarty shrugs. “I wasn't there.”

Moran half-glances back again. For some odd reason he had almost been expecting Moriarty to admit to killing his own father. “Well what do you believe happened then?”

“Most likely, suicide.”

“Oh.” Moran smokes his cigarette in silence for a few seconds. “Do you miss him?”

“No. As I said before, we were not close.”

“Oh,” Moran says again. Now that Moriarty is revealing more about himself, Moran is not actually sure what to do with some of this information. So far it seems to suggest that Moriarty talks little about his past because much of it means absolutely nothing to him, not that he is concealing some deep dark secret. “Well are you... angry with him, for doing that, if it's true that he did?”

Moriarty tilts his head slightly, considering this. “No,” he says. “If he did it, then it is because this world drove him to it.”

“Your father was...?”

“He liked his own sex, yes. Alas, the society we live in cannot deal with men such as that. In turn I believe... that made him unable to deal with his own desires also.”

“'Men such as that' - men like us?” Moran suggests.

“I suppose so.”

“It's never seemed to bother you though, what we do together.”

“No,” Moriarty agrees. “It hasn't. My father... what he got up to with other men, I did not consider it my concern. I certainly did not consider it sinful, or deviant, or anything of that kind however.”

“Did you never resent him, for not desiring your mother?”

“Why would I? I have no anger towards him, Sebastian, and certainly no disgust, not towards him, nor towards... what we do either. So, pet, does it bother _you_? Are you disgusted by your own desires?”

“ _No_ ,” Moran says, laughing.

“So all of this, this _interrogating_ me, is this your rebellious side rearing its head then?” Moriarty enquires. It was inevitable, he thinks, that Moran would behave like this sooner or later - playing up, asserting his own dominance. The Colonel is obedient and loyal to a fault, but not weak-willed. He submits, but his submission must be earned and never forced, and even the Professor will sometimes provoke his contrary nature, but that is all right. Life would be very tedious indeed if one's companion mindlessly and passively went along with everything one ever said or did.

"Yeah.” Moran flashes him a grin before taking another pull on the cigarette.

Moriarty smiles and holds out his hand for the cigarette again. “It is not something I would like to see all the time, but it is interesting to experience it on occasion.” As Moran hands him the cigarette Moriarty takes another drag on it.

“I'm not ungrateful, Professor, about the piano. I mean... I appreciate you showing it to me,” Moran says after a moment. “It was a nice thought, I'm just...”

“Not ready for that?”

“No.”

“Will you ever be ready for that?” Moriarty queries, handing the cigarette back.

“I dunno. My mother...” Moran closes his eyes tightly for a moment and pinches the bridge of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, like a man with a headache. “She taught me how to play, she encouraged me in that. Bach was one of her favourites.”

“Johann _Sebastian_ ,” Moriarty says, musing on it.

“My father though... he thought the piano a namby-pamby thing. Then my mother died.” Moran takes another pull on the cigarette. “ _So_ ,” he says, the tiny little word conveying so much – an ending, or many endings – the end of his mother's life, the end of his playing the piano, the end of him having anyone to truly care for and nurture him. “I don't even know what became of our piano after that. My father probably sold it or destroyed it.” He would not be surprised in the slightest if Augustus had smashed the exquisite instrument into firewood in a fit of temper. “Maybe though... one day I'll be ready to play again.”

“All right. The piano will still be here if you ever wish to play it, and I will be here to listen when you do.”

“Thank you Professor.”

“I am not used to all of this,” Moriarty admits after a moment's pause.

“All of what?”

“To... trying to make someone else happy. I have known men who have wives, or mistresses often, and they try to please them – their mistresses especially – by ensconcing them in luxury; by buying them expensive gifts.”

“Sir,” Moran says thoughtfully, “did you just call me your _mistress_?”

“Why, does that offend you?”

“No, not really. I just... didn't expect you to express things in such terms.”

“It is not without some merit as a comparison. Anyway... I suppose I thought... I should treat you in the same manner.”

“By giving me a piano on top of giving me a horse?” Moran smiles. “I don't need expensive gifts, Professor. I'm glad you saved Foxtrot from your brother's vindictiveness, but you don't need to give me things of monetary value simply to make me happy, or to make me...”

“Make you what?” Moriarty queries, when Moran trails off.

“Care for you.” It was not quite the phrase he would like to have said, but close enough. “I do anyway.”

“Care for me?” Moriarty says, with the merest hint of wryness in his smile, as if he almost understands what Moran truly wished to say instead.

“Yes.”

They fall silent for a time, lying there quietly, passing the cigarette between them until it is a mere stub, whereupon Moran lights the second, still in silence. Moriarty isn't much of a cigarette smoker customarily but there is something so pleasingly companionable about sharing a cigarette now.

“May I ask you something else?” he enquires at last.

“If you want.”

“You won't consider this me prying into your private life or anything?”

Moran laughs again. “No, Professor.”

“You have been with men and women before.”

“Yeah.”

“So now you are with me, do you... still want to go with women?”

Moran narrows his eyes, considering this. It sounds so perilously close to some of the things other men have said to him before, assuming that in the end he will always inevitably be drawn to a woman while only ever treating his encounters with men as some trivial thing, meaning nothing. “I'm not gonna 'go with' anyone else.”

“No, I'm not suggesting that you would.”

“Is this about that maid? Cos I saw the way you looked at her when she was fussin' about me at the breakfast table.”

“I suppose that... made me consider the matter again, but it is not only because of her. I just... I don't understand the way you feel, Moran, because I am not like you. I am not drawn to my own sex or the fairer one in the way you are. Therefore I don't understand if for you... there is a difference.”

Moran shrugs, relaxing. “Not really.” He has preferences perhaps, for particular acts, for particular body parts even, but there is no real fundamental difference between his desire for men and his desire for women.

“So you do not feel that somehow you are missing out, by not being with a woman now?” Moriarty enquires.

“Some people might take that line of questioning the wrong way, Professor,” Moran says. _You'll go off and marry a woman in the end, when you get tired of playing about with men like me_ , certain men said to him before. Spitting the words out, contemptuous and vitriolic. _Men like you always do._

“It is not my intention to offend you. I am not accusing you of anything.”

“I know.” Moran flashes him a quick smile. The Professor has always seemed to accept Moran for what he is, and Moran does know that Moriarty is only confused – even more bewildered about their developing relationship than Moran himself is. At least Moran has had past relationships of one kind or another even if they were largely nothing terribly deep or long-lasting, but Moriarty has next to no experience of anything like this. Apparently he does not even experience many of the same feelings which Moran feels. Moriarty, contrary to what some may think of him, does not wholly lack empathy, but he does struggle sometimes to relate to others when often he has no foundation upon which to build that empathy.

“I just... do not wish for you to be unhappy, if you feel that there is something a woman can give you which I, as a man, cannot.”

Moran starts slightly. “We're not talking about children here, are we?” Because it sounds suspiciously as if this is what the Professor is trying to imply, yet surely he cannot mean that.

The look on Moriarty's face suggests that this idea had not occurred to him before, and now Moran has brought it up the matter has caused him even further doubt. “Good Lord, no! Why, do you _want_ children?” He has seen Moran with the street children, the orphans, the runaways, the waifs and strays of London, and it has crossed his mind more than once that Moran is very good with children in a way the Professor can never be.

“Christ no!” Moran says, perhaps a touch too swiftly and emphatically.

“Moran?” Moriarty presses.

“I don't!” Moran says. Moriarty continues to regard him though, not saying anything, just watching him, until Moran relents. “All right, it's... more complicated than that,” he admits. “I don't mind children, and maybe there's a part of me even that... likes the idea of bein' a father.” It is strange for him to hear himself saying that, because it's another thing he would have scoffed at a few years back – marriage, children, _settling down_ , the idea of all of that - any of that - seemed absurd to him.

“But?”

“Maybe certain things are carried in the blood. Maybe what my father is, what his father was, maybe others before 'em... Maybe that could be all sort of distilled down into me.”

“You believe yourself capable of harming a child?” Moriarty almost looks appalled by this thought, because Moran is a killer, yes, but he is not a coward, not a bully, and the idea that Moran is afraid that he might one day be capable of hurting a child when the notion of doing so seems so despicable to him is almost painful to contemplate, that he could have such a low opinion of himself.

“Maybe I'm a product of my bloodline and there ain't anything I can do about that.”

“You don't believe that.”

“I couldn't risk it still. Anyway, it don't matter, does it? We ain't gonna magically create a child together, so it's irrelevant, and this ain't even what you really wanted to talk about.”

“No, it wasn't,” Moriarty agrees. “I didn't mean children. I suppose I meant...” He isn't exactly sure what he meant, in truth.

“Look.” Moran sits up and regards the Professor calmly. “I'm still attracted to women, even when I'm with you. I'm still gonna see certain women sometimes and think they're beautiful, just the same as sometimes I'm gonna see certain men sometimes and think the same. But no, I don't feel like... there is something I need which only a woman can provide me with and that you, or any other man for that matter, can't. It don't work like that.” He thinks for a moment. “What exactly would you do anyway if I said yes there is something I need from a woman which you can't provide?” he asks. For Moriarty is dominant and controlling, never to the extent of being abusive, but he could surely never permit Moran to have relations with anyone else. He has accepted Moran's continued friendship with Kitty Winter and the knowledge that the two have previously been sexually intimate, but surely his tolerance only extends so far.

“I have no idea,” Moriarty admits, which is somewhat surprising to Moran, who so rarely hears Moriarty admit that he is clueless about any matter. “You perplex me, Moran. You still make me feel things I have never really felt before, and I must confess that one of those things is jealousy.”

Moran smiles again, somewhat uncertainly. “I was only asking in a hypothetical way, you know. You don't need to be jealous.”

“And yet I still am – when I see you talking to someone else, laughing with them, smiling at them.” Because Moran is his – he knows this by now; knows that he cannot simply go back to how things were before, when he lived contentedly alone. With Moran's companionship he has had a taste of something else and it has changed him – not at some fundamental level, but it has made him realise that without Moran he could never be quite as contented by himself as he once was ever again. “But I do not know what to do about that. I would never try to forbid you from speaking to or even so much as looking at another person ever again. Of course I would not. But...” He allows this 'but' to hang in the air between them.

“Would it help you to know I feel the same sometimes?” Moran asks.

Moriarty looks at him, somewhat perplexed. “Jealous?”

“Yeah.”

“Of what, exactly?” After all Moriarty has been with so few people he could count them all on the fingers of one hand with some to spare, and those were well before he ever met Moran. What then does the Colonel have to be jealous of?

“You have this... this whole other existence, without me. Your academic life. All those people you know in that, people who admire you.”

“I think that number is sadly diminished in recent times,” the Professor points out. “What with me being driven out of my previous position.”

“People still respect you; they respect your work. Anyone who matters knows you for what you are.”

“A criminal?” Moriarty queries with a smile.

Moran smiles. “A brilliant mathematician,” he says. “And I know, I will always know, that I am not brilliant like you are.” And that doesn't really matter to him, usually. Academia is not for him and never has been. He had the supposedly good education – private tutors; Eton; Oxford – and he turned his back on it to become the man he is now, a dissolute ex-army officer who will always carry the whiff of dishonour about him, despite him managing to avoid an outright scandal.

But sometimes when he is with Moriarty, when the Professor is more immersed in his world of numbers and sums; of students and stacks of books, Moran feels keenly aware that he rarely understands and cares even less about those other things which Moriarty is passionate about. Meanwhile there are others who understand exactly what Moriarty is talking about; who care about them very much, and, yes, at times Moran is a little jealous of them.

“And I'm not... academically minded like some of those people you associate with.”

“You need not be jealous, Sebastian.”

“I can't 'elp it.”

“Well then.” Moriarty squeezes Moran's hand gently. “Perhaps we are more alike than we both believed.”

It's an oddly comforting thought, for in many ways they are completely unalike. They are not incompatible in their differences – quite the opposite, really – but they do not always understand each other. To discover further points of similarity between them then is reassuring.

In comfortable silence Moran smokes the cigarette down to a stump, finally stubbing it out in the ashtray before placing this aside.

“I must confess,” Moriarty says at length, “that sometimes, despite my occasional feelings of jealousy, I feel intrigued by the idea of watching you being taken by someone else.”

Moran turns to stare at the Professor.

“The idea shocks you?” Moriarty enquires, seeming amused by this.

“It... confuses me.” For Moriarty's possessiveness and even resentment when seeing Moran even talking to someone else seem absolutely unable to coexist with the idea of him wanting to see someone else in the throes of passion with his lover.

“It came as rather a surprise to me too, for me to realise that I was considering the notion. It would have to be someone with no other attachment to you, of course.”

“Of course,” Moran echoes, still bemused. “Sir, is this something that... you're seriously considering?”

“It's a possibility, no more. Of course much depends on how _you_ feel about it.”

“I don't... know what to feel.” And he truly doesn't. Moran doesn't know if this is something that offends him, for it perhaps suggests that the Professor has grown bored or disgusted by physical intimacy with him; that he wishes to foist Moran onto someone else now and not have to deal with that any more. Or does it excite him, the idea of being taken by another while the Professor, his lover, his _master_ , watches over and controls the entire situation, dominating both him _and_ whoever is brought in to join them?

The first thought hardly makes sense though; they have coupled many times now and never has the Professor seemed bored or disgusted by the sex. He dislikes certain acts or certain elements of it also – such as the physical mess left behind – but those are different matters and easy enough to address. Looking at him now, Moran thinks, no the Professor isn't unhappy with the sex; he isn't bored or repulsed by it. He looks content and sated and relaxed even. In that case, the Professor's reasons for being at least intrigued by this idea are of somewhat less concern to Moran, no matter how confusing those reasons may be.

How then does he feel about the idea himself? There is perhaps a tingle in his loins at the thought of it, but also simultaneously a sensation that is definitely unease. Moran has had other people inside him – men mostly of course, though there was Kitty and a certain interesting device as well. But though he liked the act previously, even craved it at times, he did not allow it to happen with great frequency. Some might suspect this is down to him perceiving the act as 'unmanly' somehow, an act of weakness where he allows another man to intrinsically dominate him, but it is not about that at all. In fact far from being weak or passive, Moran has often been the instigator and the controlling partner on those occasions where he did allow another man to penetrate him.

It is really more about trust, or his lack of trust in others. The act is easier in some ways when one's back is to one's partner, but Moran does not trust most people enough to have his back turned to them. Meanwhile face to face... the intimacy of that could be highly unsettling, not something he was comfortable engaging in with most men. That is likely still true. His first thought then is were the Professor to bring in another man with the intention of watching this man sodomise Moran, Moran is more likely to refuse point blank or panic mid-fuck and lash out, breaking the man's nose or doing something equally painful as well as embarrassing. His second thought is though that Moriarty being in charge perhaps would make all the difference. He does not trust others, but he does trust the Professor.

“You look uneasy about the notion,” Moriarty remarks.

“I'm not, I'm just... I don't know that it's something I can do.”

Moriarty smiles. “My boy, I am not proposing that we rush out immediately and find someone to do this with us. I mentioned it only as an idea I found somewhat intriguing. Perhaps one day we shall do it, perhaps we shall never do it.”

“Will you think badly of me if I refuse?” Moran asks.

“Do you not know me at all?” Moriarty scoffs. Moran is so naïve at times, he thinks. He is a man with a strong will, not someone who can be easily forced or coerced into anything he does not wish to do, yet he is also desperate to please the Professor. He does not wish to let Moriarty down and loathes the thought of disappointing him.

“I do, but...” Moran is afraid to believe in the truth at times; he is afraid to believe that he has found someone who truly cares for him and never deems him to be weak.

“Sebastian.” Moriarty puts his hand to Moran's cheek, rubs his thumb along that angular cheekbone. “I am speaking of the future, and entirely hypothetically, and I do not expect much less demand that you acquiesce to every one of my ideas for our little games, any more than you expect me to give in to every desire you ever have.” And Moran understands that last part, Moriarty knows, because the Colonel has always been respectful of and solicitous about the Professor's needs; he has always accounted for his lack of experience when it comes to all kinds of physical intimacy. He has always taken into account too Moriarty's lack of, well, one might call it some manner of _longing_ , some innate pull towards another human being which Moran himself possesses apparently in abundance. He does not push or coerce or manipulate; he regularly questions the Professor's willingness to proceed, and he has learned and understood that certain acts that he himself relishes are anathema to the Professor. Having another man's prick in his mouth, for one, but others beside that. Moriarty, for instance, rapidly seems to grow bored by certain acts which in Moran can drive him almost into a frenzy, if they are done right. Moran likes kissing, and not only on the mouth but down his neck, down his chest; he likes being kissed and licked and caressed and petted, sometimes for a long long time before they ever get to what might be termed the main event. The Professor, in contrast, can only tolerate so much of that before he must bid Moran cease. A little can arouse him but his threshold for it is rather low and easily crossed, and once crossed he rapidly grows bored by it. The Colonel though has learned this and accepted it without complaint, no matter how much he might want to persist with kissing and licking his way over Moriarty's body for hours at a time. He nearly always now manages to find the perfect balance between too little and too much for the Professor.

“I think perhaps... there are many other things we might try together, in the future,” Moriarty continues.

Moran looks up to meet his gaze. “Oh?” Trying to sound very casual about this, as if he is barely curious at all, though Moriarty is not deceived. The Colonel's desires are just as outré, just as _deviant_ , as the Professor's own.

“I may even take inspiration from the world of horses.” Moriarty now runs his thumb across Moran's lower lip. “I can imagine you, for instance, with a bit in your mouth, bridled and blinkered.”

Moran lets out a soft huff of amusement at this. “And then you'll take a riding crop to my backside, no doubt?”

Moriarty shrugs as he lies back down, resting his hands behind his head. “Maybe. Also... is there not a _charming_ practice of using a piece of root ginger inserted into a particular orifice to _enliven_ a sluggish horse?”

Moran's eyes narrow faintly at this. He has only contempt for the trick, one used often by horse dealers who wish to make their half-starved or aged and decrepit nags appear briefly to be spirited and lively beasts, at least for long enough to try to cheat a little more money out of would-be buyers. He is curious though how a man such as Moriarty even knows about such things.

“There is,” he says cautiously.

“I would think that it is an unforgivably cruel act to inflict upon a poor dumb animal.”

“Yes.” Moran is rather relieved that the Professor thinks so.

“Doing the same to a creature who has consented to it however...” Moriarty says this lightly, and allows the thought to hang in the air. He raises an eyebrow meaningfully as he regards Moran's face intently.

Moran swallows thickly. “Sir...”

“Yes, Moran?”

“You are still very full of surprises, sir.”

“And is that a bad thing, my dear Moran?”

“No sir.” Moran grins wickedly. “Not a bad thing at all.”


	16. Chapter 16

Come morning the air is marginally less raw, but the building clouds and the slightly eerie quality of the light suggest that snow will be falling very soon. Indeed shortly after breakfast the snow starts to spit down out of the leaden skies.

“You're not going out to ride that horse with snow falling?” Moriarty enquires from the sitting room as Moran walks past the doorway. How precisely he knows Moran is going to ride is unclear, since the Colonel's attire is little different to his usual dress, but the Professor is accurate in this assumption.

Moran pokes his head around the door-frame. “Just to stretch her legs. I won't be long.”

“It's only going to get heavier,” Moriarty points out. And how absurd would it be for Moran to have survived everything he has survived only to go and get himself killed in a snowdrift in England.

“I'm only taking her out in the field, don't fret.”

“Well then.” Moriarty directs his gaze back to his book. “Make sure you do that then.”

-

As promised, Moran only rides the mare for a short distance. Besides it being cold, this saddle really needs to be looked at by a saddler or preferably replaced entirely, and he doesn't want to over-exert Foxtrot so soon after arriving.

She stares at the falling snow, eyes wide, tossing her head about but as always he leaves the reins slack enough so that she is never yanked in the mouth, and he sits very quietly, so she deigns to walk more sensibly after a minute or two. He walks and trots her for a while but as the snow gets heavier he decides that both he and the mare have had enough of the cold and the ever-thickening whiteness. Bringing her back to a walk, he turns her back towards the stable-yard. There he finds the Professor waiting for him, bundled up in his thick coat, scarf and woollen gloves.

Foxtrot still seems very fresh to the Professor, snorting steam into the cold air, prancing around and swishing her black tail and even with Moran's careful handling she tosses her head about a great deal. Moriarty unwittingly takes a step backwards as she trots smartly past him, moving as if she has springs in her feet and seemingly deliberately ignoring Moran's request to walk. The Professor is not afraid of the animal precisely, but he still finds her somewhat unnerving, as he does the thought that she could so easily toss Moran off her back and smash his head open like an egg. But Moran seems so serene still, and so calm, even faced with the mare's disobedience. The Professor does not know very much about riding but even he can tell the difference between Moran's style and his brother's. Moran barely seems to move in the saddle; he appears to be absolutely one with his mount, as if nothing could shift him from her back no matter how many times Foxtrot sidesteps and prances and jogs. Even her occasional half-rears seem not to vex him in the slightest. Colonel Moriarty in contrast seemed inelegant and ham-fisted and in a constant battle with his horse, all the time hauling on its reins or kicking it or jabbing it with his spurs. He also sits in the saddle with his legs far further forward than Moran does, meaning whenever he wishes to kick or jab there is a lot of leg movement involved. Moriarty wonders really what pleasure his elder brother actually gets out of riding, though presumably it is something to do with feeling one has mastery over an animal much bigger and stronger than oneself. He might understand that himself – dominating and controlling another creature; in essence it is precisely what he does with Moran – but he cannot see the appeal of only ever using force and violence to gain that mastery. His private games with Moran have never been a battle, more a collaboration.

“Is that not exceedingly dangerous?” he enquires as Foxtrot rears up again, startled by a windblown leaf or a snowflake or an invisible monster.

Moran leans forward and Foxtrot plants her forefeet on the ground again. Grinning, he pats her neck as she walks on. “Not exceedingly, no. This is nothing. You should see a proper rearer.”

“I'd rather not.”

“Had one go straight up, topple right over on top of me once.” Moran says this with surprising cheerfulness, as if there is something highly amusing about potentially being crushed by half a ton or more of horse. In truth his childhood experiences of horses, or an ill-tempered and somewhat murderous Shetland pony in particular, have rather inured him to even the most wayward behaviour exhibited by the animals. If he could put up with that pony trying to grind him into the dirt he can put up with just about anything from them, regarding their usually half-hearted efforts to throw him off or knock him down with amusement rather than fear.

“Isn't that rather tiresome?” the Professor enquires as Foxtrot throws her head up yet again.

“She'll settle,” Moran says, sounding perfectly relaxed. “She's just used to fighting against your brother. She'll figure out there's no point in fighting something that's not there sooner or later.” Back in the yard, he slides from the mare's back and runs the stirrups up their leathers.

“I don't believe she likes me,” Moriarty remarks, as the mare shies away from his tentative attempt to pat her neck.

“Maybe you remind her of your brother,” Moran says with a wry grin.

“Good lord, I hope not.”

“She just knows you're nervous around her.” Moran slides his hand into his pocket and pulls it out holding a palmful of oats.

“I am _not_ nervous,” Moriarty says, watching Foxtrot lip the oats from Moran's palm. But then he finds himself staring at her big teeth, thinking about how easily she could nip off a finger.

“Uncertain then,” Moran amends, ever the expert in soothing the Professor. “You want to pet her?”

Moriarty doesn't especially wish to, though he is too stubborn to admit that. “All right.”

“Come here then.” Moran beckons to Moriarty, who very deliberately pauses before he walks back towards the horse, just to show that Moran cannot issue orders to him and expect obedience too often. “Take your glove off, now, here, hold out your hand, palm up. Keep it flat.”

Moriarty gives Moran a slightly withering look, trying to convey that Moran sounds rather as if he is teaching a small child how to behave around a pony. He holds out his hand, palm upwards, fingers very definitely flat, however. It would be very foolish indeed to get his fingers chewed off just to try to make some silly point. Moran drops another fistful of oats into the Professor's bare palm. “You'd better not start making a habit of carrying oats around in your pockets,” Moriarty chides. “I won't have you becoming one of those unbearable horsey people who drop oats and bits of straw everywhere and talk about nothing but splints and spavins.”

“Maybe you shouldn't have given me a horse then,” Moran says with a sly wink. “Go on, offer them to her.” He holds Foxtrot's reins and rubs her neck while Moriarty tentatively holds out the handful of oats.

The horse eyes Moriarty almost disdainfully for a second, but he persists in holding out the oats beneath her nose. At last, nostrils flaring, she drops her head and lips at the oats.

“Give me your other hand,” Moran says, before realising he may be taking charge a bit too much. “Please, sir,” he adds.

Moriarty obliges and lets Moran take his free hand, guiding it to rest upon Foxtrot's glossy neck. She flicks back her ear and rolls her eye a little but continues to snuffle in the Professor's palm for more food.

“All right, good girl,” Moran says softly to her. “Just stroke her slowly, and don't touch her head,” he says to the Professor. “She was well treated once, I think, before your brother got hold of her and nearly ruined her, and she remembers that.”

Moriarty, almost holding his breath as he does so, gently runs his hand down the mare's neck. Even he finds something moving in how she responds, by rolling back her eye but not pulling away. No doubt without Moran's steadying influence on her she would be reeling away in terror at this very moment, but it is enough for Moriarty that she accepts his touch at all.

“She is beautiful,” he says softly, because she is in a way even a very _unhorsey_ person such as the Professor can grasp, although he does not exactly mean aesthetically beautiful, right at this moment. More that there is something exquisite in her evident trust in Moran, and in the willingness of this still fearful animal to accept the Professor because she perceives him to be, in some sense, an extension of Moran.

Moran practically beams with pleasure at this remark. “Want to ride her?” he asks, grinning.

“Absolutely not,” Moriarty replies, smiling. He understands there is no malice in Moran's question, unlike in his older brother's willingness to loan what he believed to be a difficult and deeply dangerous horse to Moran in order to humiliate or even hurt him. The Colonel is only teasing, knowing full well the Professor is never going to agree to actually get on the mare's back any time soon.

The two carriage horses, Philolaus and Archytas, watch from their loose-boxes as Moran leads Foxtrot back, the Professor walking by the Colonel's side. Since they were not needed in London for the duration of their owner's time away, the pair of black geldings were sent here on the same day Moriarty and Moran left London, to enjoy a little time away from the smoke and dirt and bustle of the city. In fact their sojourn may be about to be extended even further, which if they were capable of understanding might please them both immensely.

“How would you feel about us staying on here for a few more days?” Moriarty asks as he watches Moran unsaddling Foxtrot.

“Aren't you needed in London?”

“Not immediately.” Moriarty toys idly with the leather strap of Foxtrot's woollen rug, draped over a rack in front of her loose-box. “And I would like...”

“What?” Moran asks, pausing to glance back when the Professor hesitates. Beside him Foxtrot blows into her water bucket, creating ripples on the water's surface and splashing a little over the edge.

“I would like to spend a little more time with you, just the two of us. Well, a couple of servants will be here too of course, but really... well, it will be only the two of us.” How much time has he ever really spent just relaxing, not really doing anything, Moriarty has started to wonder lately. He has never really been on a holiday. He has travelled to various places, parts of Europe, but always for reasons connected to his work, despite indulging himself in visits to the opera occasionally whilst on those business trips. Even Yew Lodge, pleasant as its location may be, has never before been more than a work retreat for him, a place to come to plot or to meet with someone who requires his assistance in a place with rather more privacy than in London. “We have everything we need here, plenty of food and drink, firewood, fodder for the horses, and so forth, so even if the snow does get any heavier, even if it cuts us off, we should be fine here for a good while.” Oddly, spending increasing amounts of time with a companion has altered him, making him want even more of that. Once he would have been itching to return to his work but now the idea of taking a few days to simply enjoy Moran's companionship is far more appealing.

Moran turns to place the saddle on the half door. The Professor sounds strangely hesitant, and Moran is unused to hearing him sound so uncertain about anything. “Why?” he asks.

“Well, why not?”

Moran fiddles with the girth buckle briefly as he thinks this over. “You just... didn't seem much inclined before to want to take time off from your work.”

“Perhaps I am coming to realise now that... I should, and that you and I should... spend more time simply getting to know each other. I think in recent days we have managed to learn a great deal about each other that we did not know before and that is something that...” Moriarty glances down, continuing in this rare display of hesitancy. “That I would like perhaps to continue.”

Moran grins. “So we'll just sit around the fire swapping personal anecdotes, will we?” He is sure the Professor would rapidly grow bored by this. “I'm not saying I'm against this idea, Professor, but are you really going to be content just staying here, doing very little?”

“No, but we can do other things too.”

“Like what?” Moran queries. He can't really imagine the Professor engaging in the more playful winter activities, building men out of snow, or throwing snowballs, for instance.

“I thought perhaps we might take bracing walks together in the country air.”

“Bit cold for that surely?”

Moriarty ignores this comment, knowing of Moran's penchant for grumbling about the temperature whether it is cold or hot. Too much time in foreign climates seems to have largely destroyed his tolerance for the cold, and yet he seems to abhor heat and humidity also, though Moriarty suspects by now that the Colonel simply enjoys complaining about the weather to him. “If the snow does not get too heavy you can ride of course,” he says.

“Would you accompany me?”

“Perhaps. Also Fuller's Pond tends to freeze over in weather like this. It becomes safe enough to skate on.”

“You know how to ice-skate?” Moran looks at Moriarty as if he is suddenly seeing a whole new side to him.

“I've dabbled, in my younger days.” Moriarty smiles. “Do _you_ know how to skate?”

“Never tried it,” Moran admits. There were not really many opportunities for that, as an adult, and as a child, well, he was not the sort of child who had anyone to take him skating.

"I'm certain there are still a couple of pairs of ice-skates up in the attic. I could teach you.”

“Perhaps.” Moran toys idly with the saddle's girth for a second or two. “You know, Professor, since you went and gave me another present on top of what you already got me, I reckon I owe you something more now.”

“Moran, I did not give this horse to you in expectation of receiving anything else from you.”

“I know.” Moran glances up, grinning slyly. He picks up an old towel and starts to rub down Foxtrot's snow-damp coat with it. “Maybe I weren't talking exactly in terms of objects though,” he calls back to the Professor. “Maybe I can think of one or two other ways to make it up to you – ways that would probably also keep us nice and warm in this cold weather.”

Moriarty refuses to rise to such words however. “A vigorous walk and a cup of cocoa would serve just as well to warm us up, Sebastian.”

“Well I don't mind the sound of _vigorous_ activity and I'll even make you cocoa afterwards if you insist upon it.” Standing by Foxtrot's off side, Moran stoops to peer under the mare's neck at the Professor. “But I was thinking of something a little more... _horizontal_ than walking.”

“I know you were.” Moriarty smiles, his eyes almost seeming to twinkle, showing his acceptance of Moran's words, and his amusement. The Colonel may not be entirely joking but he is playful in his behaviour, still not pushing, Moriarty knows that. “I'm sure there will be time for plenty of that also,” he says.

Grinning to himself still, Moran ducks behind Foxtrot's neck again to continue towelling her off. When he has finished he slips under Foxtrot's neck to stand before Moriarty. “Sir,” he says. “Professor... thank you, again, for everything. For her.” Patting Foxtrot's neck as he speaks. “And for... everything else. Everything you have done for me.”

“You have done a great deal for me too,” Moriarty points out, reaching up to brush a wisp of hay from Moran's hair.

“And I _am_ sorry, for lashing out at you, about the piano.”

“Sebastian.” Moriarty sighs, with a degree of deliberate exaggeration. “We have been through this.”

“I know, I just-” Here Foxtrot turns her head and nudges her nose hard into Moran's back, shoving him forward into Moriarty's arms.

“Even your horse knows that there is no point in going over this again,” Moriarty remarks, laughing.

Moran, grinning too, looks up at him momentarily, before turning his head to regard the mare. “All right, madam, whatever you say.”

“Now we will not even mention that again until you are ready to bring it up,” Moriarty says as Moran turns back to put the rug on Foxtrot. “So,” he says at last, as Moran finally exits the loose box and bolts the door behind him, leaving the mare to pull at the hay in her rack in peace. “Do you want us to stay here for a few more days?”

“And enjoy each other's company?” Moran says, grinning again, as he steps towards Moriarty, sliding his arms around him, leaning in to kiss him very gently on the lips.

“Yes,” Moriarty answers after accepting the kiss.

Moran smiles again. Ahead of him lie several days to be spent largely in the Professor's company, with far more privacy than they can have in the city and where they need do very little except enjoy themselves. And as well as the other horses he has his own horse here too now, a mare who is spirited, still damaged perhaps as much in her mind as in body, but whose trust in him and affection towards him seems to be increasing all the time. All of this, it gives him a pleasantly warm feeling inside that no hot cocoa or even most _vigorous_ activity could ever quite manage to give to him. “Yes, Professor,” he says as they embrace still. “I would like that very much.”


End file.
